A child prodigy, “Bella Martha”, “Tigressa” – numerous terms have been coined to describe Martha Argerich. However, none of these names do justice to an artist who consistently defies categorization. With an almost rebellious spirit, she defies expectations of her public persona – unbending, independent, unapproachable. She does not fit into any pigeonhole, and any attempt to squeeze her into a prefabricated image is bound to fail. Martha Argerich is not only one of the greatest pianists of our time. She is, as her teacher Friedrich Gulda once said, “a genuine phenomenon that cannot be explained”, “the absolute in art”.
The energy that the Argentinian pianist unleashes on stage is like a natural phenomenon, as if the music flows by itself as if it could take no other path, as easy as a child’s play – like back in kindergarten in Buenos Aires when a boy claimed she couldn’t play the piano. She, barely three years old, sat down at the instrument without hesitation and without ever having touched a key before and flawlessly played a lullaby by ear.
Stories like these contribute to the myth surrounding Martha Argerich. She gave her first concert at seven with piano concertos by Mozart and Beethoven, followed by Schumann’s piano concerto at eleven. She is said to have learned Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in her sleep while her roommate rehearsed the concerto and memorized the complex work as if by magic. At the age of sixteen, she won both the Bolzano and Geneva piano competitions, and eight years later, she celebrated her international breakthrough by winning the prestigious Chopin Competition. By this time, she had already emerged from a virulent crisis. In her early twenties, she hardly touched the piano for two years and seriously considered ending her career. “I lived like a 40-year-old, even though I was still so young,” she later said about this time, which was characterized by endless concert tours and a deep sense of isolation.
