Martha Argerich

Martha Argerich (1941- ), Argentinian pianist, one of the most distinguished of her generation. She was born in Buenos Aires, and studied under Vincenzo Scaramuzza, Friedrich Gulda, Madeleine Lipatti, and Nikita Magaloff. In Europe she won several major international piano competitions, including the Busoni Competition (in Bolzano in 1957), the International Music Competition (Geneva, 1957), and the Chopin Piano Competition (Warsaw, 1965). In 1980, as a jury member of the Chopin competition, she resigned in protest when the young Yugoslav pianist Ivo Pogorelich was not awarded a prize.

Argerich’s playing is renowned for its emotional fire as well as its technical brilliance, which is shown to greatest effect in her favoured 19th- and early 20th-century repertoire. She takes a keen interest in chamber music, and frequently performs with other great instrumentalists, including the violinist Gidon Kremer and the cellist Mischa Maisky, as well as with other pianists in works for two pianos.