Maurizio Pollini was born in Milan to a family of artists in 1942. In 1960 he won the first prize at the Chopin Competition in Warsaw. Since then, he has been a leading protagonist at all major concert venues in Europe, as well as in America and Japan. Pollini's repertoire extends from Bach to contemporary composers, but music by Chopin, Beethoven, Schubert and the 20th century form a focal point of his work. Johannes Brahms himself played the solo part at the world premiere of his Piano Concerto No. 2 in Budapest on 9 November 1881. This concert with Maurizio Pollini, Claudio Abbado and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra was recorded in May 1976 at the Vienna Musikvereinssaal.