Ravel: Piano Concerto in G; Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 4

Michelangeli, Arturo Benedetti

album cover

Impressive Tone in Every Note

On the great big spectrum of sound, how many points are there between the pianissimo of a butterfly's fluttering wings and the triple forte of a subway screaming into the station? Are these split into discrete increments, as on a guitar amplifier where "1" is quiet and "10" (or in the case of Spinal Tap, 11) is loud? Or is volume better understood as an unbroken, continuous arc?

These two concertos showcase a pianist whose art grapples with (and, indeed, depends upon) such considerations. The Italian pianist Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (1920–1995) was respected for his technical command; but he was revered for his precise attention to volume and shading, the ability to illuminate key phrases just by changing the tone ever so slightly.

Both pieces are late masterworks by their respective composers, and both offer Michelangeli lots of chances to engineer marathon shifts. His entrances on the Ravel start out reserved, as though he's choosing a level that will allow him to maximize the music to come. The piece, which Ravel wrote around the same time as his Concerto for the Left Hand, is one of the wildest rides in the orchestral repertoire: After the pastoral calm of the second movement, the third shuttles brazenly into the bustle of a jazz-age city. The Rachmaninoff has similar flashes, and here Michelangeli's technique is the catalyst, knitting the composer's small and frequently isolated melodic "cells" into a fast-moving and highly satisfying whole.

Michelangeli fought in the Italian army during World War II. His career took off after the war, and though he developed a following in Europe, he didn't perform frequently in the U.S. and remains significantly less known here. These lovingly recorded performances were captured during Michelangeli's late-1950s peak, and they helped establish him among the world's great soloists, alongside Arthur Rubinstein and Vladimir Horowitz. They are also considered among the best-ever concerto discs (perhaps out of respect, no other pianist has paired these two works on the same recording). Michelangeli's performances earn that respect, not only because the lines themselves arrive so well polished, but because he enlivens them with such vivid contrasts. You almost wonder whether there's a volume knob hidden somewhere on the piano.

Genre: Classical
Released: 1958, EMI (Reissued 2000)
Key Tracks: Ravel: second movement. Rachmaninoff: first movement.
Catalog Choice: Michelangeli Plays Grieg and Debussy
Next Stop: Vladimir Horowitz: At the Met
After That: Monique Haas: Plays Debussy, Ravel, and Bartók, Orchestre National de l'ORTF (Paul Paray, cond.)
Book Pages: 501–502