Milan, 23 March 2024
The Teatro alla Scala mourns the loss of Maurizio Pollini, one of the great musicians of our time and a fundamental reference in the theatre's artistic life for over fifty years. The CEO Dominique Meyer, the Music Director Riccardo Chailly, the musicians of the orchestra and the La Scala workers feel close to his wife Marilisa, his son Daniele and the whole family.
A pupil of Carlo Lonati and Carlo Vidusso, and an absolute protagonist of the international concert scene ever since he won the Chopin Competition in Warsaw in 1960 at the age of 18, Pollini was an interpreter capable of revolutionising the perception of composers such as Chopin, Debussy and Beethoven himself, and of promoting, with untiring dedication, the listening to the historical avant-gardes, above all Schönberg, and the music of today.
Alongside his greatness as an instrumentalist, his testimony to the very role of music, understood as an essential component of culture and civil life and as a tool for transforming society, remains fundamental.
From his debut on 11 October 1958 to his last recital on 13 February 2023 Pollini has performed at La Scala 168 times, in addition to meetings with students and participation in juries and conferences. After his first concerts conducted by Thomas Schippers and Sergiu Celibidache, the evening of 23 October 1969 marked the beginning of his collaboration with Claudio Abbado, which was destined to mark not only the history of performance but also the cultural history of the city of Milan. The common commitment to broaden the repertoire, in particular to the second Viennese school and to new music was combined with an equal commitment to broaden the audience in line with the approach of Paolo Grassi, who in those years was developing new policies to involve the entire city in the theatre's activities. The collaborations with Riccardo Muti and later with Daniel Barenboim and Riccardo Chailly were also fundamental, but over the decades concerts with Carlo Maria Giulini, Pierre Boulez and Zubin Mehta are also remembered.
In addition to the relationship built up over the years with La Scala musicians, both as Orchestra della Scala and above all as Filarmonica, there are appearances with great orchestras such as the Wiener Philharmoniker (with Abbado) and the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester (with Chailly) and numerous ensembles dedicated to today's music, in particular in the 'Pollini Cycles' promoted by Stéphane Lissner: the Ensemble Intercontemporain, the Klangforum Wien, the Musikfabrik Köln, the Experimentalstudio SWR. In the field of chamber music, we remember him in particular alongside Salvatore Accardo, Toby Hoffmann, Margaret Batjer and Rocco Filippini. But at the heart of Maurizio Pollini's uninterrupted presence at La Scala are recitals above all: from the historic cycle with the 32 Beethoven sonatas in 1995 to the always eagerly awaited annual concert featuring the fixed stars of his musical universe: in addition to Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Debussy, Schönberg, and Nono. We were expecting him again on 20 October.
