Essential Martha Argerich

01The Young Firebrand

Argerich first became widely known through a series of solo recordings in the 1960s that took the music world by storm. In music by Prokofiev, Ravel, Brahms, Liszt, and Chopin in particular, here was a pianist of unparalleled virtuosity, blistering technique, and a fierce, unflinching musical personality.

02The Poet

But it was not all fire and brimstone: Argerich’s technique was also at the service of a rare poetic sensibility that could go right to the heart of more introspective works by Schumann, Chopin, Bach, and Ravel.

03Collaboration Early On

Always ambivalent about the lonely career of the solo virtuoso, Argerich began to enrich her musical life early on through collaboration, establishing several long-lived chamber music partnerships as early as the 1970s with musicians including Mischa Maisky and Gidon Kremer.

04Concertos

Argerich formed several key partnerships with conductors in a concerto repertoire that was selective rather than broad, but which, alongside Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, and Schumann, also encompassed Shostakovich and Haydn, as well as, with Kremer, Mendelssohn’s early Concerto for Violin and Piano.

05Chamber Music

By the 1980s and after, chamber music had become one of the main centres of her activity. In composers such as Brahms, Shostakovich, and Tchaikovsky, she joined forces with collaborators such as Kremer, Maisky, Yuri Bashmet, and, more recently, Renaud Capuçon.

06Four Hands

Argerich gave up solo recitals and recordings completely, with the result that appearances in two-piano and piano-duet repertoire became one of the most recognisable parts of her later career, including partnerships with Nelson Freire, Nicolas Economou, and Sergei Babayan.

07Festival Years

From the 1990s onward, festivals became central to the way Argerich performed and was recorded, above all at Verbier. They brought together many of the friendships, collaborations, and younger musical partners that shaped the later decades of her career.