Ravel: The Piano Concertos / Le Tombeau de Couperin / etc

"...it is clear from the initial whipcrack that it is to be exciting sonically, with an attractive orchestral crispness allied to bass strength. The jazzy, bluesy elements in the second-subject pair of themes in the first movement rightly have a touch of the primitive about them too."
(Gramophone 1989)

Martha Argerich was born in Buenos Aires. From the age of 5, she took piano lessons with Vicenzo Scaramuzza. Her teachers have since then included Friedrich Gulda, Niikita Magaloff and Stefan Askenase. Following her first prizes in the piano competitions in Bolzano and Geneva in 1957, she embarked on an intensive programme of concerts, and won the Warsaw Chopin Competition in 1965.

Martha Argerich rose to fame with her interpretations of the virtuoso piano literature of the 19th and 20th centuries. But she does not regard herself as a specialist in "virtuoso" works her repertoire ranges from Bach through Beethoven, Schumann, Liszt, Debussy and Ravel, to Bartók, with Beethoven's music playing a prominent part in her programmes.

Martha Argerich has worked with many renowned conductors, and also attaches great importance to chamber music. She has toured with such musicians as Gidon Kremer and Mischa Maisky; she has also recorded much of the literature for four hands with Nelson Freire, Stephen Bishop-Kovacevich, Nicolas Economou and Alexandre Rabinovitch. Martha Argerich has performed at Gidon Kremer's festival in Lockenhaus, at the Munich Piano Summer, the Lucerne Festival and at the Salzburg Festival.