Martha Argerich is one of the most prominent piano players in the second half of the 20th century. She is some what of a fabulous, technical prodigy. She wows this composer and pianist! She makes me weep for joy for the craft of music. God gave her a fabulous gift and she continues to use music as a conduit to endure life’s hardships. She was even given a prestigious award by President Obama at the Kennedy Honors. Her accomplishments are so astonishing and reinforce what many composers and other piano players just long to be a part of. (I’m referencing this because I want to play music of others, but I’ve really come to be a composer for other artists, singers and performers). It just really wows me how performers like her just have this fluidity and this ability to just play so many pieces at their later ages. It’s just so awesome! I would love it if I were to do a piano concerto and have someone like her play the tar out of this piece. A better goal is to have a piece for orchestra and choir for the orchestra and have the whole world sing for the Gospel.
The Liszt concerto No. 1 is one of her best performances of craft. The way her wrists flow across the key bed are great and brilliant. The sounds of the orchestra and piano are so colorful. The gracious water falling on the chromatic passages is so beautiful and colorful that it’s just breathtaking. There is so much expression and yearning and joy in the performance that it takes me to another place. There is a spot in the concerto where Argerich plays this seemingly never ending trill in the right hand while expanding musical textures in the left hand. It’s probably in movement two where this happens.
The depth of complexity of the piano really shows in what a virtuoso Liszt was. Argerich really shows this in depth to a degree that is simply spellbinding.
The ending is simply beautiful and blistering—well deserving of the thunderous applause that accompanies the ending of the last movement.
The piece in whole just seem to jaunt along at a fairly fast pace in the last movement that requires a rich understanding of the piano itself and where all the keys are. Scales are also key to mastering these various climaxes that are all throughout the piece. Argerich does a fantastic job at doing all of these difficult passages and deserves quite the standing ovation.
