FAREWELL TO…
Maurizio Pollini Born 1942 Pianist and conductor
‘That young man can play the piano better than any of us,’ enthused Arthur Rubinstein on hearing an 18-year-old Maurizio Pollini play his way to victory in the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in 1960. That victory set in motion a career that would last a full six decades, covering repertoire ranging from JS Bach to Webern, Boulez and Stockhausen, all played with a meticulous attention to detail and uncanny ability to bring out detail that might pass other pianists by. The Milan-born son of architect Gino Pollini, Maurizio briefly put his ambitions on hold for a period of intense practice before touring worldwide from the mid-1960s onwards. In 1971, he recorded Stravinsky’s Three Movements from Petrushka and Prokofiev’s Seventh Sonata for Deutsche Grammophon, beginning a relationship with the ‘Yellow Label’ that would produce a string of acclaimed discs.
From 1976, he also took up the baton, though the piano would always remain his priority. His ardent championship of modern music was exemplified by his ‘Progetto Pollini’ series of recitals which, launched in 1995, combined classic and contemporary works.
Byron Janis Born 1928 Pianist
One of a flurry of supremely talented American pianists to hit their stride immediately after World War II, Byron Janis (pictured left) was arguably best known for his performances of Romantic repertoire ranging from Chopin to Rachmaninov, much of which he recorded for RCA in the 1950s. Talent-spotted by Vladimir Horowitz while in his teens, the Pennsylvaniaborn Janis studied with the Russian pianist for four years, leading up to his Carnegie Hall debut in 1948. Sadly, from the early 1970s, his career was bedevilled by arthritis in both hands, something he would later speak publicly about as an ambassador for the Arthritis Foundation.
Péter Eötvös Born 1944 Composer and conductor
Having first put pen to paper at the age of five, Péter Eötvös’s wideranging output as a composer included 12 operas plus a wealth of orchestral, chamber and vocal works. Championed at an early age by his fellow Hungarian Ligeti, he would go on become musical director of Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris from 1978-91, helping to lead the way in the composition and performance of new music. As a conductor, he held the posts of principal guest conductor with both the BBC Symphony and Gothenburg Symphony orchestras, and it was with the latter that he won the BBC Music Magazine Award for Technical Excellence for his recording of Berio’s Sinfonia in 2006.