For more than two decades now, Maurizio Pollini has been one of the most successful pianists on the international musical scene. Pollini was born in 1942 in Milan and studied in the conservatory there. In 1960 he won the Warsaw Chopin competition by acclamation, particularly impressing the renowned Arthur Rubinstein with his technical mastery. After his triumph in Warsaw, Pollini worked with the reclusive Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, a cult figure since World War II for many piano lovers. By the 1970s Pollini was esteemed not just for his virtuosity, but for the interest of his repertory; not only has Pollini played much Bach and late Beethoven, he has been assiduous (unlike so many of his colleagues) in programming—and recording—twentieth-century literature, including works by the popular Bartók and the well-known (albeit hardly popular) Schoenberg, and also by the less prestigious Hans Werner Henze and Luigi Nono.

By the 1980s, Pollini was solidly established as an artistic celebrity, occupying a secure niche in the musical life of Italy and Europe, appearing regularly at the most prestigious music festivals, touring the world, and recording extensively for Deutsche Grammophon. His playing has been seen as the quintessence of what might be called young-modern pianism: physically powerful, faithful to the text, note-accurate, straightforwardly unsentimental, dependable, intellectually penetrating, and (to use a word beloved of writers of remainder-book ads) lucid. Individually, these estimable virtues doubtless might be thought a bit prosaic. But together, they have been responsible for elevating Pollini in the public mind