Martha Argerich & Zubin Mehta: Schumann & Bruckner

When Martha Argerich and Zubin Mehta appear with the Wiener Philharmoniker, expectations are inevitably high. This 2022 performance from Vienna’s Musikverein is no different, bringing together these two legendary musicians – who both studied in Vienna in the 1950s – and one of the world’s great orchestras in two pillars of the Romantic repertoire. Argerich returns to Schumann’s Piano Concerto, a work she has made unmistakably her own over decades, bringing all the spontaneity, poetry and impulsive energy that have always defined her playing. In the second half, Mehta brings a lifetime’s experience as a Bruckner conductor to the bracing sonic vistas and expansive climaxes of the composer’s “Romantic” Fourth Symphony.