Maurizio Pollini

While Pollini's Schumann is not to everyone's taste – some find his virtuoso playing too cool and his bracing interpretations too intellectual – for those who revere Pollini, his Schumann is a tonic after nearly two centuries of sloppy and sentimental performance practice. Pollini's Davidsbündlertänze may not be as poetic as Arrau's and his Kreisleriana may not be as fantastic as Argerich's, but he finds meanings and significances in the works that no one ever has before. Pollini's Concert sans orchestre and Allegro in B minor are second to none in technical panache and interpretive aplomb. DG's piano sound is as real as playing the piano.

Franz Schubert - Complete Recordings with Maurizio Pollini (2013) [3CD] {Deutsche Grammophon}
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Classical / Piano

Here are Maurizio Pollini’s complete Schubert recordings, brought together for the first time in a single set. “A feast of fine Schubert playing … what a sovereign pianist Pollini is” – Gramophone (Late Sonatas). Pollini’s Schubert recordings are among the greatest that he has ever made – both the early LP from 1974 of the Wanderer Fantasy and A minor Sonata, and the double album from the 1980s bringing together the three Late Sonatas and late piano pieces.

To this day, Maurizio Pollini, who won 1st place at the prestigious Chopin Competition in Warsaw in 1960, remains one of the most extraordinary pianists of our century. With this release, Deutsche Grammophon continues the series of collections dedicated to him.

Here are Maurizio Pollini's compelling interpretations — paired with two now legendary conductors - of five piano masterworks performed with the Vienna Philharmonic at home, the Musikverein's magnificent "golden hall" In Mozart and Beethoven the camera captures the pianist's virtuosity as well as his empathy with Karl Bohm as they document the only two Mozart concertos that Pollini has ever released. For the Brahms concerto Pollini is joined by a young Claudio Abbado creating great music-making in which this essential repertoire is joyfully illuminated by two kindred spirits.

Want to know what the two smartest musicians in Italy think of Bartók's first two piano concertos? Try this disc. With Maurizio Pollini at the piano and Claudio Abbado on the podium, the Hungarian modernist's concertos have never sounded so brilliant. Recorded in transparent stereo for Deutsche Grammophon in 1977, Pollini and Abbado's Bartók with the Chicago Symphony is searingly translucent in orchestrations that favor the winds, brass, and percussion over the strings and piano writing that encourages shock and awe virtuosity.

Originally released between 1976 and 2007, the offerings in this eight-CD box set represent Maurizio Pollini's exemplary concerto recordings for Deutsche Grammophon, including all of Ludwig van Beethoven's cycle, the two piano concertos by Johannes Brahms, and six of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's masterpieces in performances that rank among the pianist's finest.

No prizes for predicting that this Liszt B minor Sonata is technically flawless and beautifully structured. What may come as more of a shock (though not to those who have followed Pollini's career closely) is its sheer passion. To say that he plays as if his life depended on it is an understatement, and those who regularly accuse him of coolness should sit down in a quiet room with this recording, a decent hi-fi system and a large plateful of their own words. The opening creates a sense of coiled expectancy, without recourse to a mannered delivery such as Brendel's on Philips, and Pollini's superior fingerwork is soon evident. His virtuosity gains an extra dimension from his ability at the same time to convey resistance to it—the double octaves are demonstrably a fraction slower than usual and yet somehow feel faster, or at least more urgent.

A marquee name among classical pianists since the 1970s, Maurizio Pollini has been noted for performances of some of the most monumental of contemporary music, and for pairing such works with standard repertory of the 19th century. Pollini's decades-long relationship as a recording artist with the Deutsche Grammophon label has been among the most stable in years.