Two great pianists died in March within a week of each other: Maurizio Pollini and Byron Janis. Two very different pianists from two very different pianistic traditions, each with their own distinctive character, repertoire and following. I have to confess I never really ‘got’ Maestro Pollini – cries of ‘Shame! Outrageous! How could you?!’ – but there it is. I never quite warmed to him. I am not denying he was a major figure on the world’s concert platforms over the past half century, commanding full houses and an adoring public, but he was someone who, while I respected him, did not touch me in the slightest way. His celebrated Chopin Études, for instance – polished, aristocratic, technically close to perfection – held me at arm’s length. While obituaries praised his intellect and uncompromising choice of repertoire, his espousal of the Second Viennese School and other 20th-century modernists was never going to endear him to me. The piano music of Nono, Boulez and Stockhausen certainly stirs me – out of my chair and straight for the ‘off’ button.

I was discussing all this with a fellow pianophile and he, sharing my view of Pollini, posed the question: ‘Can you name any Italian pianist who has ever moved you?’ We thought about it and drew a blank. We went through everyone, starting with Michelangeli, and agreed that, for some reason, despite the temperate climate, the rich culture of the country and the excellent wines, though there were many very fine Italian pianists, there were none who moved us. Moreover, no Italian composers of piano music either. Sgambati? No. Dallapiccola? Martucci? No. Certainly not Busoni nor, on another level, Einaudi. We adore Scarlatti, of course, but he does not involve any emotion beyond delight. On the other hand, the list of Italian opera and song composers whose music can bring tears to the eye or have us on the edge of our seat is a very long one indeed. Strange.

So that brought my friend and me to those pianists who, at some point in our lives, had had us furtively reaching for a handkerchief. Me? Arthur Rubinstein in the Royal Albert Hall, frail and nearly blind, playing the opening bars of Beethoven 4. Horowitz – numerous occasions but especially ‘Träumerei’ in Moscow. Grigory Ginzburg in the Intermezzo from Faschingsschwank aus Wien. Yunchan Lim in Rachmaninov’s Third Concerto at the Van Cliburn Competition with Marin Alsop. Lazar Berman – when we all stood up in the Royal Festival Hall at the conclusion of Prokofiev’s Sonata No 6 (a standing ovation before the interval!). Most poignant of all for this writer is Josef Hofmann in his live 1938 broadcast with Barbirolli of the slow movement from Chopin’s E minor Concerto. Yes, the Romanza (Larghetto) is undeniably one of the most beautiful themes of the concerto literature, but what Hofmann does with it is unique. After the hushed orchestral introduction, the piano enters a little too perkily, given what has just been established, like someone putting on a brave front in the face of tragedy. But quickly, the front collapses and the tears flow. I find this the most moving performance of any piano work I have ever heard.

Each of us will have our own examples. Let us know: unforgettable moments, either in a concert hall or in the privacy of your own home, when something magical happened between you and the pianist. Another whose playing gives me goosebumps: Byron Janis, whether it be solo Chopin and Liszt, Rachmaninov’s First Concerto, or Totentanz and Strauss’s Burleske under Reiner, Mussorgsky’s Pictures, Rachmaninov’s Third with Munch or Dorati, or indeed any of his other RCA and Mercury recordings. One of the best examples of his playing is Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with Louis de Froment live in Paris in 1968, the epitome of sophisticated pianistic bravura (you can watch the whole black-and-white thing on YouTube). Janis would surely have had the high profile Pollini enjoyed had his career not effectively been terminated in the 1970s by painful psoriatic arthritis in all ten fingers and wrists. He had been married since 1966 to Maria Cooper, daughter of the film star Gary Cooper; he wrote an autobiography; he was interested in the paranormal; he unearthed a couple of Chopin manuscripts; he involved himself in TV documentaries; he campaigned, he joined in the conversation. Pollini did not engage like this, rarely giving interviews and standing somewhat apart.

In short, their very different characters – the Italian aloof and impersonal, the Polish-American Jew warm, approachable, fallible – reflected the kind of music they preferred and the way in which they communicated it to their audiences. When Godowsky moved to New York in 1914, as the removal men puffed and panted lifting his two Bechsteins into place, one of them stopped in his exertions and told the pianist exactly what he thought about lugging two heavy concert grands. ‘What are you complaining about?’ Godowsky laughed. ‘You only have to move pianos. I have to move audiences.’ 

This article originally appeared in the Summer 2024 issue of International Piano. Never miss an issue – subscribe today