Maurizio Pollini, who is featured in a recital at Strathmore on Sunday, has been called a lion of the keyboard, standing tall among today’s legendary pianists. A London critic, after attending one of Pollini’s performances a few years back, reported in a glowing review that Pollini is the “Italian arch-aristocrat of the piano” and that “he uses his palette of stainless-steel shades to convey unshakeable faith in the music’s muscles, sinews and skeleton.”

Pollini, on the other hand, bestows his kudos on Frederic Chopin, a composer he has studied extensively over the years and, consequently, becoming one of the Polish master’s most virtuosic of interpreters.