Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli; Classical Pianist

LUGANO, Switzerland — Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, an acclaimed pianist known for demanding perfect conditions for his performances, died here Monday. He was 75.

He was perhaps best known for his interpretation of Romantic music, and was particularly noted for his recordings of Debussy.

“It has always been my world,” he once said of Debussy’s works.

Critics praised his performances of works by a wide range of composers. His recordings range from works of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven to those of Chopin and Rachmaninoff.

He appeared in Southern California with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in the early days of his international fame in 1949.

He was still a teen-ager when he graduated from Milan’s Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in 1939. He gained fame with a series of triumphant concerts in the 1940s and was chosen by an international commission in 1949 as official pianist for the 100th anniversary of Chopin’s death.

Offstage, he lived a withdrawn life in his home outside Lugano in the Swiss-Italian village of Pura.

In a 1975 recording session of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5, Michelangeli changed pianos three times, Munzinger said. In 1986 he refused to continue a concert in Zurich after the intermission because of problems with the piano’s pitch. He said that although the piano had been tuned, fresh air allowed into the hall on the day of the concert had thrown the instrument off.

Michelangeli was as demanding of his students as he was of himself, telling them: “Playing piano means work, to feel your arms and back ache all over. . . . Music is a right for those who deserve it.”

He collapsed during a concert in Bordeaux, France, in 1988, but gave four more concerts in London in 1990. They were his final performances.