MUSIC

Some 7,000 people crowded into the Vatican on Saturday night to hear a rare performance by the reclusive Italian pianist Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. The charity concert, in the hall where Pope John Paul II holds weekly audiences, was Michelangeli’s first performance in the Vatican since 1977. The 67-year-old pianist has played in Italy only once since 1968 when he went to live in Switzerland after a private recording company in which he was a partner went bankrupt. Friends said most of his possessions, including his piano, were seized in the bankruptcy. Saturday’s two-hour recital, in which Michelangeli played Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy and Ravel, was attended by senior Vatican officials and Italian leaders, including caretaker Prime Minister Amintore Fanfani.