Michelangeli’s first recordings were made for HMV in Milan in 1939, following his win at the Geneva International Piano Competition. In Granados’s Andaluza Michelangeli uses a soulful singing tone to great advantage, while his phenomenal virtuoso technique can be heard in Marescotti’s Fantasque, one of the test pieces for the Geneva Competition. These and the 1948 recordings of Bach, Galuppi and Brahms demonstrate that as a young man Michelangeli was already a consummate artist. As a critic wrote about the recording of the Brahms Paganini Variations: ‘What a pianist! Technically, the playing is astonishing: interpretatively, here is a very great musician…. altogether this is the most exciting piano performance and recording I have heard for many a long day.’