It's too good to be true, but, Martha Argerich, the world's most prominent female pianist, is for the first time holding a festival in Taipei. The honor is a precious one considering that only Japan has an Argerich festival and that the pre-eminent Argentine pianist cancelled her Israel concert in favor of the Taipei venue.
Last year, after three cancelations, Argerich finally arrived in Taipei for the first time and was impressed by the hospitality with which she was greeted. She agreed to come back from something more than just a concert -- as a result, Taipei residents will be able to enjoy the first ever Argerich festival in Taiwan.
At a time when male pianists dominate the international music scene, Martha Argerich has managed to achieve a position towering above her many male counterparts. Aged 60, she is recognized as a peer of legendary Russian maestro Vladimir Horowitz and the idiosyncratic genius Glen Gould -- in other words, as one of the greats of the 20th century.
Last year, when the Argentine pianist played Chopin and Prokofieff at New York's Carnegie Hall, she mesmerized a packed house, receiving six curtain calls at the intermission and 16 at the final curtain. Argerich's US fans warmly greeted her after an long absence of 19 years, which marked a victorious 10-year fight with cancer.
Her comeback has reminded music fans what they have been missing. In a review of the concert, Justin Davidson says of Argerich: "I can't think of another pianist who commands such a volatile combination of technical mastery and unselfconsciousness. Her greatest peers deal in deliberate sensitivity, structure and microscopic poetry, but Argerich's playing seems to well up from some bubbling, liquid core of musicality."
Local audiences share Davidson's enthusiasm. Last year, during Argerich's first visit here, she had local audiences shouting and stomping for more, giving her five standing ovations. And the superb Chopin interpreter was ardently requested to return, as she does every year to Japan.
Argerich studied with such distinguished European pianists as Friedrich Gulda and Nikita Magaloff before she won the competitions at Busoni and Geneva in 1957 at just 16. Her debut recital was held in 1960. In 1965, she again won first prize in the Chopin International Competition in Warsaw, after which Karajan, Bernstein, and Solti could stop in their praise of her. In 1999, she was chosen as Best Instrumental Soloist Performance with Orchestra in the Grammy Awards.
Back in the 1960s, Argerich said she was thinking about starting a secretary's job before she won the Chopin competition. "I love to play the piano, but I don't like being a pianist," she told the press. "I am not very comfortable with my profession." But her incredible talent has pushed her to the forefront of her new profession and now she sets her own terms with concert organizers and record labels.
For her Taiwan trip, Argerich will be playing two concerts, a solo show and a ensemble performance in which she brings her favorite young musicians on stage, including Cuban pianist Mauricio Vallina, 30, Belgium pianist Alexander Gurning, 27, Swiss violinist Geza Hosszu-Legocky, 16, and the six-year-old Tango quintet Soledad Quintette, who will be playing a duo with Argerich for the festival.
Two young pianists are also featured in the festival, each with their own solo recital. Chen Cheng (
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