I’ve been fortunate to hear Martha Argerich live in concert in London twice in recent years, first in Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto and then in Schumann’s Piano Concerto. On both occasions I came away from the concert lost for words. Her remarkable playing is impossible to describe.
For all her international renown, she does not appear to be a natural virtuoso: she comes on stage a little shyly, dressed in a simple black top and full patterned skirt, a thick mass of grey hair clouding her face, she bows as if to say “Oh, so you’d like me to play the piano?”, sits at the piano, shakes back her hair… And then she plays…