{{Short description|German pianist (1937–2022)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=October 2022}} {{Infobox person | name = Michael Ponti | image = | alt = | caption = | birth_date = {{Birth date|1937|10|29|df=yes}} | birth_place = Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden, Germany | death_date = {{Death date and age|2022|10|17|1937|10|29|df=yes}} | death_place = Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Bavaria, Germany | education = Musikhochschule Frankfurt | occupation = Classical pianist | awards = Busoni Piano Competition }}
'''Michael Ponti''' (29 October 1937 – 17 October 2022) was a German-American classical pianist. He was the first to record the complete piano works by Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff and Scriabin. He made more than 80 recordings, around 50 of rarely played concertos from the Romantic period, often the only recording of these works at the time. He played and recorded chamber music with his Ponti-Zimansky-Polasek Trio.
== Life and career == Ponti was born in Freiburg im Breisgau;<ref name="BR" /> his father was a U.S. diplomat, and his German mother later became an American citizen.<ref name="Nicholas" /> He lived in the United States for most of his childhood and youth.<ref name="Summers" /> While still attending school in Washington, D.C., he received piano lessons for ten years,<ref name="BR" /> seven of them with Gilmour McDonald, who had studied with Leopold Godowsky.<ref name="Nicholas" /> At age eleven, he played both volumes of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier in four recitals at the YMCA in Washington from memory.<ref name="Nicholas" />
The family returned to Germany in 1955. Ponti studied at the Musikhochschule Frankfurt<ref name="BR" /> until 1961, with Erich Flinsch who had been a pupil of and an assistant to Emil von Sauer.<ref name="Summers" /> He took master classes with Arthur Rubinstein and Robert Casadesus.<ref name="QEC" />
In 1964, Ponti was a finalist of the Queen Elisabeth Competition,<ref name="QEC" /> and won first prize in the Busoni Piano Competition in Italy, which opened the way to an international career.<ref name="BR" /><ref name="Nicholas" /><ref name="QEC" /> Soon afterwards, he made his Vienna debut by performing Bartók's 2nd Piano Concerto, with Wolfgang Sawallisch conducting.<ref name="Nicholas" /><ref name="QEC" /> For his official New York debut, he played a recital at the Alice Tully Hall in March 1972,<ref name="Nicholas" /><ref name="QEC" /> and remembered:
{{blockquote|I started off with Beethoven Op. 2 No. 1, then the Tchaikovsky G major sonata, the three hardest Rachmaninov preludes including the big E minor, both books of Brahms-Paganini, the Scriabin G sharp minor sonata, Petrushka and then nine encores. I asked the audience to choose any one from a list of 54. I ended with Scriabin's 5th Sonata. It was midnight by the time we had all had enough.<ref name="Nicholas" />}}
In 1976, Iain Hamilton composed a piano sonata for him.<ref name="Nicholas" /> Ponti played with orchestras including the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Buenos Aires Philharmonic, Bamberg Symphony Orchestra and the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, and with conductors such as Sixten Ehrling, Stanisław Skrowaczewski and Georg Solti. He toured extensively throughout Europe, Egypt, Japan and South America.<ref name="Summers" /> In 1974 he toured in Southern Africa and in 1977 in Australia. In 1977, he founded his own trio, with violinist Robert Zimansky and cellist Jan Polasek;<ref name="Summers" /> they played for 20 years.<ref name="FAZ" />
In the late 1990s, a stroke left him without the use of his right hand and arm.<ref name="France" /> Despite extensive rehabilitation, he was unable to return to regular performance or recording. However, he gave concerts of left-handed music for a while.<ref name="FAZ" />
Ponti died in Garmisch-Partenkirchen on 17 October 2022, aged 84.<ref name="BR" /><ref name="Nicholas" />
== Recordings == Ponti began recording in 1961, Ravel's ''Jeux d'eau'' and ''Alborada del gracioso'' for Christophorus and Schubert's ''Wanderer Fantasy'' and Beethoven's ''Eroica Variations''.<ref name="Nicholas" />
Ponti was noted for his wide-ranging recordings of the unknown romantic repertoire on the Vox and Candide labels. He recorded a series of concertos, many of which had never been recorded before, and some of which have been unrecorded since.<ref name="Nicholas" /><ref name="Summers" /><ref name="FAZ" /> The series with Vox of around 50 recordings began in 1968 with a recording of the Piano Concerto No 3 and some etudes by Ignaz Moscheles, followed the same month by Adolf von Henselt's Piano Concerto and etudes.<ref name="Nicholas" /> He was the first to record Charles-Valentin Alkan's ''Concerto da camera'' No. 2 in 1979.<ref name="Grove" /> Composers of the series also included Mily Balakirev, Moritz Moszkowski, Hans Bronsart von Schellendorff, Clara Schumann and Sigismond Thalberg.<ref name="Summers" /> He included works by Eugen d'Albert, William Berwald, <!--Chopin-Wilkomirski,--> Alexander Glazunov, Hermann Goetz, Ferdinand Hiller, Henry Litolff, Sergei Lyapunov, Nikolai Medtner, Joachim Raff, Carl Reinecke, Anton Rubinstein, Xaver Scharwenka, Christian Sinding, Bernhard Stavenhagen and Karl Tausig.<ref name="Nicholas" /><ref name="QEC" /> In addition, he was the first to record the complete piano music of Scriabin, much of which was otherwise unavailable then, though it has since been recorded by Vladimir Ashkenazy, Piers Lane and others. He was again first to record the complete piano music of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff.<ref name="Nicholas" />
With the Ponti-Zimansky-Polasek Trio, he recorded chamber music by Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Dvořák, Mendelssohn, Saint-Saëns, Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky. He was the accompanist of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in a recording of songs by Charles Ives.<ref name="Nicholas" /><ref name="QEC" />
His output amounts to more than 80 discs, and many of his recordings have been re-issued on CD,<ref name="Summers" /><ref name="France" /> such as seven volumes of ''The Romantic Piano Concerto''.<ref name="Walker" />
== References == <references>
<ref name="France">{{cite web | last = France | first = John | url = http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2014/May14/Moscheles_Ponti_PCs_DRC4024.htm | title = The Romantic Piano Concerto, Vol. 2 | website = musicweb-international.com | date = May 2014 | access-date = 19 October 2022 }}</ref>
<ref name="Grove">{{cite web | last = Grove | first = Peter | url = http://alkansociety.org/Publications/Society-Bulletins/bulletin57.pdf | title = Bulletin No. 57 | publisher = Alkan Society | date = September 2001 | access-date = 21 October 2022 }}</ref>
<ref name="Nicholas">{{cite magazine | last = Nicholas | first = Jeremy | url = https://www.gramophone.co.uk/classical%20music%20news/article/we-pay-tribute-to-pianist-michael-ponti | title = We pay tribute to pianist Michael Ponti | magazine = Gramophone | date = 18 October 2022 | language = de | access-date = 19 October 2022 }}</ref>
<ref name="Summers">{{cite web | last = Summers | first = Jonathan | url = http://www.naxos.com/person/Michael_Ponti/614.htm | title = Michael Ponti | publisher = Naxos Records | date = 2022 | language = de | access-date = }}</ref>
<ref name="Walker">{{cite web | last = Walker | first = Raymond | url = http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2001/july01/romantic2.htm | title = The Romantic Piano Concerto, Vol. 2 | website = musicweb-international.com | date = July 2001 | access-date = 19 October 2022 }}</ref>
<ref name="BR">{{cite web | url = https://www.br.de/nachrichten/kultur/pianist-michael-ponti-gestorben,TKbGSVQ | title = Pianist Michael Ponti gestorben | publisher = BR | date = 18 October 2022 | language = de | access-date = 18 October 2022 }}</ref>
<ref name="FAZ">{{cite news | url = https://www.faz.net/agenturmeldungen/dpa/pianist-michael-ponti-gestorben-18395335.html | title = Pianist Michael Ponti gestorben | newspaper = FAZ | date = 18 October 2022 | language = de | access-date = 18 October 2022 | archive-date = 18 October 2022 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20221018161008/https://www.faz.net/agenturmeldungen/dpa/pianist-michael-ponti-gestorben-18395335.html | url-status = dead }}</ref>
<ref name="QEC">{{cite web | url = https://queenelisabethcompetition.be/en/laureates/michael-ponti/138/ | title = Michael Ponti / piano / Germany, °1937 | newspaper = Queen Elisabeth Competition | date = 2022 | access-date = 20 October 2022 }}</ref>
</references>
== Further reading == * Michael Stegemann: ''M. Ponti'', in: Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 144, 1983, H. 1, pp. 19–22 * {{ill|Thomas Schipperges|de}}: ''Klavierspiel als Lebensaufgabe – Romantik als Lebenswerk – Virtuosität als Lebenslast. Michael Ponti, dem fabelhaften Pianisten und frühen Archäologen der Musik des 19. Jahrhunderts zum 80. Geburtstag.'' In: ''Musik in Baden-Württemberg.'' 2017/18, vol.. 24, edited by Bärbel Pelker, Stuttgart 2018, pp. 303–309
==External links== * {{YouTube|-KmHasEfewc|David Dubal interview with Michael Ponti, WNCN-FM, 23 December 1984}} * [http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Ponti-Michael.htm Michael Ponti (Piano)] Bach Cantatas Website * {{discogs artist|Michael Ponti}} * {{IMDb name|0690643}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Ponti, Michael}} Category:1937 births Category:2022 deaths Category:20th-century American pianists Category:20th-century German male classical pianists Category:20th-century German classical pianists Category:21st-century American pianists Category:21st-century German male classical pianists Category:21st-century German classical pianists Category:American classical pianists Category:American male classical pianists Category:Classical pianists who played with one arm Category:Musicians from Freiburg im Breisgau Category:American musicians with disabilities Category:20th-century American male pianists Category:21st-century American male pianists