COMPOSERS: Domenico Scarlatti,Edvard Grieg,et al,Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin,Johann Sebastian Bach,Pellegrino Tomeoni
LABELS: Teldec
ALBUM TITLE: The Beginning of a Legend
PERFORMER: Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (piano); Orchestra of La Scala, Milan/ Antonio Pedrotti, Alceo Galliera
CATALOGUE NO: 0630-13303-2 ADD mono
Better still is Viktor Merzhanov’s refreshingly uninhibited Rachmaninov Third. The Intermezzo is especially demonstrative, fully on a par with the late Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli’s wartime 78s of the Grieg Concerto, although far better recorded.
Michelangeli scores with countless points of interpretative detail and a brilliant first movement cadenza. The Schumann concerto is rather more sober, but the solo pieces are high points in this pianist’s slim but treasurable ‘official’ discography.
Michelangeli’s ‘bel canto’ tone had a vocal forebear in the singing of Rosa Ponselle, whose resplendent soprano and faultless sense of line made for the greatest ‘Casta diva’ ever recorded.