Maurizio Pollini

Pollini was born in Milan to the Italian rationalist architect Gino Pollini, who has been said to be the first to bring Modernist architecture to Italy in the 1930s, and his wife Renata Melotti (sister of the Italian sculptor Fausto Melotti). Pollini studied piano first with Carlo Lonati, until the age of 13, then with Carlo Vidusso, until he was 18. He received a diploma from the Milan Conservatory and won both the International Ettore Pozzoli Piano Competition in Seregno (Italy) in 1959 and the VI International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in 1960. Arthur Rubinstein, who led the jury, declared Pollini the winner of the competition, allegedly saying: "that boy can play the piano better than any of us". Following his success at the competition, Pollini didn't perform for a year in order to expand his musical experience, leading to erroneous rumors that he had become a recluse. Soo…