“It was 50 years ago that the then 18-year-old Maurizio Pollini won the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw. It is has become part of the Pollini myth that after his victory he became something of a recluse, prone to nerves and cancellations, who didn’t properly re-emerge until the late 1960s, by which time his youthful verve and engagement had been transformed into a dauntingly icy professionalism.”