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Martha Argerich: Love her or Hate her?

21K views 71 replies 33 participants last post by  Sid James 
#1 ·
She's mine. :p
 
#4 ·
MARTHA! Welcome to the Forum! Somehow I knew you would hear my call! Will you marry me?

Seriously, though, can anyone dare to not like you... :eek:

On another note: I absolutely cannot believe that I missed her concert in SF last year! She was playing the Ravel! I hear that second movement in my sleep now...
 
#11 ·
She's best in recording romantic music, women are usually hopeless and can not play with passion, they ruin anything marked as "agitato" or "apassionato". I mean the less-known and talented women instrumentalists. Only few of them are able to put in their playing real passion and understanding, Argerich is one of them, and it makes her real treasure.
 
#18 ·
She plays some pieces well, and others really seem like they don't put across much of a point at all (for example, her Scarlatti is not very elegant at all). She's great, but it is apparent that she hasn't reached her potential yet. I say give it a decade and she'll be among my favorites. As for now, though, I'll have to listen to Truoard, Eunice Norton, Richter, Rachmaninov, Horowitz, Solomon, Sofronitzky, etc.
 
#19 ·
Martha Argerich playing is like fast and furious sex on a piano. Sometimes it can be too much (I think her Tchaikovsky and Rach 3 concertos are much too fast, particularly) but other times it can be just amazing to listen to.
 
#21 ·
Haven't heard much Argerich, except for her interesting recent recording with Nelson Freire in Salzburg (on radio). I have yet to get a recording by her, maybe that will be the one, or her first one in the 1960's which I saw recently. She's one of the few artists I can think of who has this mystique surrounding her, which compares to former greats like Chopin & Liszt in thier day...
 
#22 ·
I just got her CD, Debut Recital and am particularly enjoying her Liszt Sonata, takes the virtuosity within the sonata to an entirely new level.
 
#24 ·
Yeah that's the one, it's quite good in my opinion.
 
#25 ·
I have her Schumann Concerto next up in my Netflix que. I can hardly wait.



I have loved her Prokofiev interpretations and I love watching her - she just oozes competence and mystique. But I don't have much Prokofiev to compare her performance to. The Schumann will give me a better idea of her artistry.
 
#26 ·
I have her third Prokofiev concerto as well, although I have to admit that I prefer Ashkenazy's interpretation.
 
#30 ·
I am sorry to report that I have not really liked her Schumann concerto. She seems to treat some essential notes as appogiaturas or slurs. This is especially evident to me in the opening melodic phrase of the third movement. To me these notes need to be distinct to reveal the intended brilliance and triumph of the melody - but with this performance they just blur together. I have looked at the IMSLP score and there is no slur indicated.

I guess I grew up hearing Claudio Arrau's version and that became definitive for me. Agerich is still joy to watch and in music I am less familiar with.
 
#32 ·
I can't listen to anyone else's Gaspard de la Nuit. I heard it on Youtube and suddenly everyone else's seemed tame. The control over the color in that score was insane.

So yeah. I love Martha. I'm not a piano buff either though, so... yeah.
 
#36 ·
She flat-out knocks me dead. I love her Prokofiev and Ravel (I'd love to hear her tackle the Ravel Concerto for Left Hand, sometime). And she can take Strauss' "Burleske"--which I like a lot but seems to go on a little too long--and make me wish it was LONGER!

Just a TERRIFIC pianist, IMO.

Tom
 
#38 ·
Ok...don't mean to ruffle feathers but I may proffer an opposing view?

I find her playing hard, lacking true expressiveness and totally lacking in poetry. I suppose in this day and age such concepts are pretty well unknown..well not completely. At least she knows nothing about them. She has a very limited tonal palette, ranging from the bang to the mf...of course she can play in other dynamic ranges but to my ears her dynamics are very restricted and lacking much gradation. Yes I suppose she is a counterbalance to the prissiness of expression of certain players, and she is certainly uninhibited in her attack which makes her refreshing in a way. At least for a few minutes.

Perhaps she is best in composers like Bartok, deliberately 'barbaric' and 'ugly', this shows her qualities most starkly.

For those wanting real pianism with bite, with fierceness of attack and massive dynamics, Horowitz makes her look like a child; but he also combines that with genuine poetic feeling and depth, qualities which she doesn't seem to possess whatsoever.
 
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