Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. The Mystery of a Genius. Luca Ciammarughi's new book.

Thirty years after his death, it’s as if pianist Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (1920-1995) were still alive, such is the admiration and curiosity his figure inspires among musicians and enthusiasts of all generations. Legendary and revered, Benedetti Michelangeli was already so during his lifetime, perhaps because of the aura of mystery he himself helped foster by giving very few interviews and maintaining almost total secrecy about his private life and his outlook on life. His art spoke for him.

In this book, Luca Ciammarughi sets out to explore the profound meaning of that art, far beyond the cliché of “perfectionism,” a term too narrow to define the absolute enchantment and mystery of Benedetti Michelangeli’s sound. By interweaving biographical accounts with an analysis of performances from the Baroque to the twentieth century, a figure emerges who is anything but cold, in whom self-control masks a tormented sensitivity and a peculiarly intense Eros. With a message in a bottle: the rejection of spontaneity and the search for inner freedom in the sublime discipline of art.

He will discuss this in today’s meeting with Filippo Michelangeli, creator and director of the Pentagrammi series, of which this book is the first.