Wiener Philharmoniker / Argerich / Barenboim

Musical portrait

Her former teacher Friedrich Gulda described Martha Argerich as »wild« and »mad«, someone who was difficult to handle and »always a risk factor«. It was also Gulda who said that he couldn’t teach her anything more after the age of 12, because she could already play everything. The huge fascination of Martha Argerich lies in her irrepressible character and immense talent, coupled with her passion and the constant switching between the introvert and the extravert. The charismatic »lioness of the piano« who gave her debut at the Wiener Konzerthaus in 1959, will perform for the first time alongside the Vienna Philharmonic in the Main Hall. The conductor will be Daniel Barenboim, who has known Martha Argerich since childhood. Their artistic relationship is something of a late bloom which has blossomed only in recent years, but it is already the stuff of legend. Daniel Barenboim ungrudingly admits: »I am the first to acknowledge that she plays the piano better than i do. […] We've both retained our Argentinian soul from our childhood. Argentinians are somehow somewhat sentimental people. That binds us together, too.« Less sentimental, but more groundbreaking and virtuoso is Liszt's First Piano Concerto, with which Liszt explore new roads, both as a composer and as a pianist. The challenge here is to strike just the right balance between the self-assertion of the soloist themselves against the huge body of sound of the orchestra and the close relationship between the two, without falling into the temptation of sheer virtuosity for it’s own sake. It is a challenge that Martha Argerich is more than up to. Mahler's Seventh Symphony is the perfect way to round off the evening, a musical portrait of emotional extremes and ambivalences.