Published on 12:00 AM, March 24, 2024

Italian pianist Maurizio Pollini dies at 82

 

Italian pianist Maurizio Pollini, a virtuoso of Chopin and Beethoven who enjoyed a decades-long collaboration with La Scala, died yesterday age 82, the Milan opera house announced.

He had been in poor health in recent years and obliged to cancel some concerts.

La Scala called the pianist "one of the great musicians of our time and a fundamental reference in the artistic life of the theatre for over 50 years".

From 1958 to his last recital in February 2023, Pollini played La Scala 168 times, it said, not including countless workshops with students and conferences.

"Pollini was an interpreter capable of revolutionising the perception of composers such as Chopin, Debussy and Beethoven himself, and of promoting ... listening to the historical avant-gardes, above all Schönberg, and the music of today," said La Scala.

Born January 5, 1942 in Milan into a family of artists, Pollini stormed the classical music scene in 1960 where, aged 18 and the youngest person in the contest, he won the Warsaw Chopin Competition.

Arthur Rubinstein, president of the jury, was famously to have said that the young prodigy "already plays better than any of us".