Ludwig van Beethoven - Piano Concerto No. 5 (Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli)

Information

Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven

• Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat major, Op. 73 - "Emperor"

Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, piano

Vienna Symphony Orchestra

Carlo Maria Giulini, conductor

Date: 1979

Label: Deutsche Grammophon

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Review

There has, over the years, been mixed reactions to Michelangeli's Beethoven. He was a most perplexing artist, perplexing because he liked to keep his musical personality well hidden –or at any rate mysterious – behind the armour-plated magnificence of his playing; disconcerting too because it's hard to arrive at a reasoned assessment of readings of classical music by someone who evidently isn't a man of balance. To interpret texts of the classical masters in a way which will give them the most vivid life doesn't seem to be his principal concern. There could be an intellectual froideur about his playing of Beethoven which verges on the disdainful and which was sometimes more than off-putting.

Not here though. This performance was recorded at a public performance in the Musikverein. He drives the opening flourishes hard, and thereafter responds keenly to Giulini's exposition, grand but always moving forward, matching it with a purpose that seems to derive from just that long-range musical thinking which is so often missing in his accounts of the other concertos. There's spaciousness, and time for everything, and always that rock-like strength of rhythm. The detailing could hardly be bettered but isn't allowed to deflect attention from our perception of the form. The security of the technique is enough to make most other pianists attempting an Olympian view of the concerto seem clumsy; but it doesn't draw attention to itself. Since the depth of his sonority is perfectly matched to the orchestra's, it makes for some especially exciting listening in the finale. Great playing by a great pianist.

— Gramophone

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Ludwig van Beethoven (baptized 17 December 1770 – 26 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential of all composers. Beethoven is acknowledged as a giant of classical music, and his influence on subsequent generations was profound. His best-known compositions include 9 symphonies, 5 piano concertos, 1 violin concerto, 32 piano sonatas and 16 string quartets. Many of his most admired works come from the last decade of his life, when he was almost completely deaf.

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Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (5 January 1920 – 12 June 1995) was an Italian classical pianist. He is considered one of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century. Michelangeli's highlights include the (authorized) live performances in London of Ravel's Gaspard de la nuit, Chopin's Mazurkas and Sonata No. 2, Schumann's Carnaval, Op. 9 and Faschingsschwank aus Wien, Op. 26 as well as various recordings of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5, Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 1 and Totentanz, and the piano concertos of Robert Schumann and Edvard Grieg. His students included Maurizio Pollini, Martha Argerich and Ivan Moravec.

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