Italian pianist Maurizio Pollini, a talented interpreter of Chopin and Beethoven, died on Saturday at the age of 82, the La Scala Theater in Milan announced.
In recent years, he had been in poor health and had to cancel some concerts.
La Scala described the pianist as “one of the great musicians of our time and an essential reference in the artistic life of the theater for more than 50 years.”
From 1958 until his last concert in February 2023, Pollini played at La Scala 168 times, he detailed, not including countless workshops with students and lectures.
La Scala emphasized that “Bolini was an interpreter capable of revolutionizing the perception of composers such as Chopin, Debussy and Beethoven himself, and promoting (…) listening to the historical avant-garde, especially Schoenberg, and current music.”
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Born on January 5, 1942 in Milan to a family of artists, Pollini rose to prominence on the classical music scene in 1960, when he won the Warsaw Chopin Competition at the age of 18 and was the youngest in the competition.
Arthur Rubinstein, the jury's president, said the young prodigy “actually played better than any of us.”
Half a century later, Pollini corrected Rubinstein by saying: “He played better technically than any of the members of the jury.”
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“I always thought he said that to make fun of his fellow jurors,” Polini said in a 2014 documentary. “Someone manipulated that phrase by removing the ‘technically’ and it became an exaggerated compliment.”
Rather than embarking directly on the concert scene, Pollini put his career aside to study, explaining that playing on the spot would have been “a bit premature for me”.
In the late 1960s, Pollini participated in impromptu concerts in factories and programs for students and workers at La Scala, directed by his friend Claudio Abbado.
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Pollini undertook his first US tour in 1968.
From the 1970s to the 1990s, he made a series of recordings on the prestigious Deutsche Grammophon label, while maturing into a celebrated interpreter of Ludwig van Beethoven, Robert Schumann, Franz Schubert and Johannes Brahms.
Pollini's albums have won numerous awards, including the 2007 Grammy Award for Best Solo Music Performance (non-orchestra) for Chopin: Nocturne.
He is survived by his son and wife.
“Travel junkie. Coffee lover. Incurable social media evangelist. Zombie maven.”