Martha Argerich: Fifteen Facts About One of the Greatest Pianists Ever

by Emily E. Hogstad 

Martha Argerichs simultaneously one of the most celebrated and most enigmatic of classical music stars. Many people call her the greatest pianist of her generation – and others, the greatest pianist who ever lived!

Today, we are taking a look at the life and career of this fascinating woman and looking at fifteen facts you might not have known about her.

1. Martha Argerich was a precocious child.

Martha Argerich as a kid

She began kindergarten before her third birthday. One day, a schoolmate teased her that she couldn’t play piano. She then proceeded to sit down and play a piece by ear that their teacher had just played for them. She was just three years old.

2. Her first piano teacher was Italian pianist Vincenzo Scaramuzza.

He said of her that she may have been six, but she had the soul of a 40-year-old.

3. When she was a teenager, her family moved to Europe, and she began studying with one of the quirkiest pianists of all time.

Friedrich Gulda and Martha Argerich

His name was Friedrich Gulda, and he flouted convention by doing things like playing a concert in the nude and even faking his own death. His rebellious spirit appealed to Argerich, and although she only studied with him for eighteen months, she has cited him as one of the most important influences in her musical life.

4. When she was sixteen years old, she won two major competitions within the span of three weeks:

The Geneva International Music Competition and the Ferruccio Busoni International Competition.

5. When she was a young woman, she gave up the piano for three years.

Martha Argerich

During this time, she considered becoming a doctor or a secretary. Luckily for listeners, she returned to the keyboard, and she won the 1965 Chopin competition when she was twenty-four, shortly after her break and after having given birth to her first child.

6. Her personal life has been tumultuous.

Her first husband was composer and conductor Robert Chen, a friend whom she was married to briefly in 1964. In 1969, she married conductor Charles Dutoit, who became a trusted musical collaborator. In the 1970s she was partnered with pianist Stephen Kovacevich. She had three daughters, one during each relationship.  

7. Argerich was an unconventional mom.

She liked having her kids at home rather than sending them to school, and she fostered a bohemian atmosphere, often staying up all night and sleeping well past noon. She did not have custody of her first daughter, Lyda Chen, and didn’t see her very often until she was a teenager. The two have reconciled and, according to a 2016 profile in the Washington Post, mother and daughter remain close.

8. Martha Argerich speaks six languages:

Spanish (her native language), Portuguese, French, English, German, and Italian. She spoke French at home when raising her daughters.  

9. She can feel “lonely” onstage.

To combat this, she has shied away from solo repertoire and focused on chamber music and concerto performances, where she has other musicians to bounce ideas off of.

10. She is notorious for canceling appearances, due to incapacitating stage fright.

This happens so often that she doesn’t sign contracts. She also loathes giving interviews, which is why you read so few of them.

11. Her repertoire is relatively small.

Martha Argerich with The Philadelphia Orchestra, 2008 © carnegiehall.org

She doesn’t like to perform pieces that she doesn’t feel a deep connection with. Her favorite composers, and the composers she feels the deepest connection to, include Schumann, Ravel, and Chopin.

Martha Argerich: Schumann Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 54 (2022)  

12. She loves Beethoven’s fourth piano concerto so much that she has never played it in public.

She also says that hearing Stephen Kovacevich playing this concerto was the thing that made her fall in love with him. She believes she will never play it in public. It’s the only Beethoven piano concerto that she hasn’t performed.

13. She travels the world with a stuffed Paddington bear.

Argerich’s oldest daughter told Gramophone in 2021, “She is always hugging her Paddington Bear and it is falling to pieces. This is the bear that Stéphanie [her youngest daughter] offered her to protect her during her travels, and has been traveling for at least 25 years, and recently had a change of clothes which was very complicated because we could not find exactly the right red hat and blue outfit.”

14. Martha Argerich was diagnosed with malignant melanoma in 1990.

She was forty-nine years old. It was treated and went into remission, but then returned five years later. Luckily, an experimental treatment in California resulted in Argerich becoming cancer-free.

15. In 2012 Stéphanie Argerich filmed a thoughtful documentary about her mother called Bloody Daughter.

In it, Martha Argerich comes across as a magnetic presence, simultaneously intense and childlike. In a poignant voiceover, Stéphanie says, “My mother is a supernatural being in touch of something beyond the reach of ordinary mortals. In fact, I’m the daughter of a goddess.”

The Ukrainian Factor in Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1

by Georg Predota  

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23 (1875)

The Tchaikovsky family in 1848. Left to right: Pyotr (nicknamed Petya), Alexandra Andreyevna (mother), Alexandra (sister), Zinaida, Nikolay, Ippolit, Ilya Petrovich (father) © englishwordplay.com

Even at the best of times, the relationship between Russia and the Ukraine has been somewhat troubled. Although they share much of their early history, the Mongol invasion in the 13th century initiated a distinct division between the Russian and Ukrainian people. Tensions escalated over subsequent centuries, and from the mid 17th century, the Ukraine was gradually absorbed into the Russian Empire. In 1918, Ukraine declared its full independence from the Russian Republic, and it took two treaties to calm the military conflict. In 1922, both Ukraine and Russia were founding members of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and both were signatories to the termination of the union in December 1991. Ever since, acute and ongoing territorial and political disputes have shaped the tenuous relationship between the two countries. You only have to listen to the daily news to know what I mean!

The reason for this brief historical overview is simple. Textbooks on music history consider Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893) “an outstanding Russian composer,” and rather conveniently overlook the fact that the composer had Ukrainian roots. His paternal grandfather Pyotr Fyodorovich Chaikovsky was born in the Ukrainian village of Mykolayivka, and he trained as a doctor at the Kyiv Academy. His military service took him throughout Russia, but his son Ilya Chaikovsky (1795–1880) remained close to the Ukrainian roots of his father. And the same is certainly true for his son Pyotr Ilyich. Although born in the Russian town of Votkinsk, Tchaikovsky annually spent several months in the Ukraine, where he composed over 30 works. Tchaikovsky wrote: “I found the peace of mind here that I had unsuccessfully sought in Moscow and Petersburg.”

Tchaikovsky knew and loved Ukrainian folklore for its melodiousness and profound lyricism, and these important cultural and musical influences found their way into some of his best-known compositions, including the Piano Concerto No.1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23.

The house where Tchaikovsky used to stay in Ukraine

Nikolai Rubinstein was generally regarded as the foremost Russian pianist of his time, and he greatly encouraged Tchaikovsky’s creative effort. However, their friendship became severely strained when Tchaikovsky dedicated, and presented his first Piano Concerto to Rubinstein. Tchaikovsky recalled that “I played the entire work for Rubinstein, but he did not say a single word. When he finally spoke, a torrent of insults poured from his mouth. My concerto was worthless and unplayable. Passages were so fragmented, so clumsy, so badly written that they were beyond rescue. The work was bad, vulgar and I had shamelessly stolen from other composers.” To consider the work unplayable is one thing, but to call it vulgar hints at a fundamental dislike of its Ukrainian influences. Needless to say, Tchaikovsky hastily changed the dedication to Hans von Bülow, who gave the first performance of the work on October 25, 1875 in Boston.

The first movement inscribed “Allegro non troppo” opens with a majestic introduction, broadly voiced in the orchestra and forcefully punctuated by widely spaced chords in the piano. This memorable tune—scored in the unusual key of D-flat major—is first heard in the orchestra and later taken over by the soloist. Surprisingly, the soloist proceeds straightaway into an extensive piano cadenza. Once the strings articulate the theme once more, the introduction comes to a close, and astoundingly, this theme is never heard again. Soft horn calls and a brass chorale announce the movement properly, with its first theme derived from an Ukrainian folk tune. Maintaining a perfectly balanced discourse between the orchestra and soloist, Tchaikovsky energetically emphasizes the rhythmic qualities of this tune. The lyrical contrast, which unfolds in two sentimental melodies, is first introduced by the orchestra and then repeated by the solo piano. A highly virtuosic interlude provides the segue-way for an extended development section, which continues to alternate passages of dramatic expression with virtuoso displays by the soloist.

A gentle and introspective dance, introduced by the flutes, opens the “Andantino” movement. For the most part, the piano performs an accompanimental function, as this lilting theme is sounded by the cello and oboe. However, in the central “Prestisssimo”, based on the French tune “Il faut s’amuser et rire” (It’s all fun and laughter), a very demanding piano part is reinstated, before a brief cadenza returns us to the opening dance.

The concluding “Allegro” opens with another Ukrainian folk-song, broadly contrasted by an expansive romantic theme, first sounded in the strings. Russian and French influences notwithstanding, it becomes immediately apparent that Tchaikovsky’s Ukrainian musical roots creatively shaped this venerable warhorse of the concerto repertory.

Rosalyn Tureck: The Greatest Bach Pianist You’ve Never Heard Of

by Emily E. Hogstad

Most classical music lovers know about Glenn Gould and his legendary recordings of Bach’s Goldberg Variations.

But do you know about Rosalyn Tureck, the incredible keyboard player who inspired him?

Over the course of her very long career, Rosalyn Tureck wore countless hats as a pianist, theremin player, harpsichordist, keyboard player, composer, conductor, teacher, and all-around great musical thinker.

Rosalyn Tureck

Today, we’re looking at her life, including the mystical experience in a Juilliard practice room that changed the course of her career, her fascinating experiments with very new (and very old) instruments, and how her playing inspired a young Glenn Gould.

Rosalyn Tureck’s Early Education

Rosalyn Tureck was born on 14 December 1913 in Chicago to two Russian-Jewish immigrants.

Her whole family was musical. Her grandfather worked as a cantor in Kiev, and her mother taught her three daughters to play piano.

When Rosalyn was nine, she began taking lessons from Sophia Brilliant-Liven. Brilliant-Liven had an impressive resume: she’d studied under Anton Rubinstein, the pianist who had founded the St. Petersburg Conservatory.

She was also a strict teacher. Tureck later remembered that for an entire four years, she never received a single compliment.

The first compliment came after Rosalyn won a major competition at thirteen. Brilliant-Liven heard her performance and told her, “If I had been listening from outside the auditorium, I would have sworn it was Anton Rubinstein himself playing.”

A Fascination With New (and Old) Technology

Rosalyn Tureck

From an early age, Tureck demonstrated what would become a lifelong interest in new musical technology.

She was especially taken by an electronic instrument called the theremin, which was patented in 1928. When she was ten years old, she had the opportunity to meet the instrument’s inventor, Leon Theremin. It wasn’t long before she was playing Bach on it.

At sixteen, she realised she could use her theremin expertise to secure a scholarship. She went on to make her Carnegie Hall debut on the theremin – not piano – in 1932.

Around the same time, Tureck also began studying with pianist and harpsichordist Gavin Williamson in Chicago. In the 1920s, when there were only a couple of dozen harpsichords in the country, Williamson and his partner Philip Manuel went to Paris to commission a reproduction. They played a major role in resurrecting the instrument in America.

Williamson passed along his love of the harpsichord – and especially Bach as played on the harpsichord – to Tureck.

Revelations at Juilliard

Rosalyn Tureck

When Tureck auditioned for Juilliard in 1931, the audition committee asked her to play a Bach Prelude and Fugue. She asked, “Which one?” Turns out she had all of them memorised and was prepared to play any.

Needless to say, she was accepted into Juilliard. She began studying with Olga Samaroff, a teacher well-known for encouraging the unique creative voices of her students.

One day, while at Juilliard, she had an epiphany about the works.

One Wednesday, I started studying the Fugue in A minor from the WTC First Book.

At a certain point, I lost consciousness, and when I regained it, I had a sort of revelation. All of a sudden, I had within my reach a penetration of Bach’s structure, of his entire sense of form…

A door had opened for me on an entirely different world.

This epiphany at college would form the basis of her professional specialty.

Rosalyn Tureck playing Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in A Minor   

Promoting Bach

In 1937, Tureck played six all-Bach concerts in New York City. Such a specialty was unusual at the time. She began presenting these performances annually.

It took time to win over the critics, but she eventually did. In 1944, the New York Times wrote about her performance of the Goldberg Variations that she “gave each variation with so distinctive a character and with such verve and vitality that the listener had the illusion of hearing Bach himself playing them on the harpsichord.”

Other musicians were also engaging with Bach’s keyboard works around this time. In 1946, harpsichordist Wanda Landowska made a recording of the Goldberg Variations, and it sold unexpectedly well.

Tureck went into the studio herself in 1947, creating her own recording of the Goldberg Variations.  

In 1949, a sixteen-year-old Glenn Gould came to one of her New York Bach concerts. He was absolutely dazzled by her and her recordings.

Glenn Gould at the piano

He later remembered Tureck:

She was the first person who played Bach in what seemed to me a sensible way. It was playing of such uprightness, to put it into the moral sphere. There was such a sense of repose that had nothing to do with languor, but rather with moral rectitude in the liturgical sense.

He also said:

I was fighting a battle in which I was never going to get a surrender flag from my teacher on the way Bach should go, but her records were the first evidence that one did not fight alone.

Gould himself went on to make his own legendary, hugely influential recording of the Goldberg Variations in 1955.

Embracing New Technology

Leon Theremin © thereminworld.com

Tureck’s expertise didn’t stop at Bach. Even during her time at Juilliard, she began exploring her interest in electronic instruments. She actually began studying the theremin with Theremin himself.

Later, she’d become fascinated with the artistic possibilities inherent in electronic keyboards.

For twenty years, she worked with researcher Dr. Hugo Beniof, a seismologist who worked at CalTech and was developing electronic keyboards. The two wanted to create an instrument that played like a piano and had a wide dynamic range.

After Beniof’s death, despite the fact that the instrument had never been truly perfected, a performance featuring it was organised at the Hollywood Bowl. Marketing materials heralded that the electronic piano would be louder than an entire orchestra.

The invention was conceptually interesting and pushed the bounds of technology at the time. Unfortunately, in the end, it turned out that a loud piano had limited commercial appeal, but it was still a testament to Tureck’s fascination with pushing boundaries.

Contemporary Music

Rosalyn Tureck

Tureck also loved contemporary music, championing many new works over the course of her career.

She premiered Copland’s challenging piano sonata in Britain; Diamond wrote his first piano sonata in 1947 for her; and she premiered William Schuman’s 1942 piano concerto.  

In 1949, she founded the Contemporary Music Society, and she ran the organisation until 1953.

She even composed herself, even studying for a time with Schoenberg. In 1952, in the words of her obituary, “she presented the first programme in the United States of tape and electronic music.”

Travels and Teaching

For decades, Rosalyn Tureck traveled across America and the world giving performances.

She founded her own orchestra – the Tureck Bach Orchestra – which performed between 1960 and 1972.

She also became the first woman to conduct at a New York Philharmonic subscription concert in 1958. Leonard Bernstein conducted the program, but he stepped aside during the Bach concerto so that she could conduct from the piano.  

Teaching was a major part of her life. Over the course of her career, she taught at a number of institutions, including the Philadelphia Conservatory, the Mannes School of Music, Juilliard, Columbia University, and Oxford.

She was also the author of a number of books, including the three-volume Introduction To The Performance Of Bach, and also edited editions of various Bach works.  

The list of musical organisations she founded is staggering. Here’s the list in her obituary:

“Composers of Today, New York City, 1949-53; the International Bach Society in 1966, and the Institute for Bach Studies, New York, two years later; the Tureck Bach Institute, New York, 1966-90; and last but not least, the Tureck Bach Research Foundation (TBRF) of Oxford in 1993.”

Final Years and Legacy

Rosalyn Tureck

In the 1990s, Tureck moved to Oxford to oversee the TBRF. Her wide-ranging interests and huge personality proved to be irresistible.

In the words of her obituary:

The TBRF held an annual symposium at which distinguished speakers from different disciplines – ranging from music to astrophysics and Egyptology – addressed the same topic, such as structure or embellishment.

At those meetings, Tureck played Bach on everything from the harpsichord to the Steinway and the synthesiser – often on several instruments during one concert – and she had little patience for the restrictive attitudes that declared Bach should only be played on historical instruments.

Rosalyn Tureck died in July 2003. She left behind a reputation for being one of the most imaginative keyboard artists of the twentieth century.

Alessandro Scarlatti’s Soulful Legacy: 10 Arias that Still Stir the Heart

by Hermione Lai 

In 2025, we’re celebrating 300 years since Alessandro Scarlatti (1660-1725) left his mark on music history. Born in Palermo, Scarlatti composed over 100 operas and 600 chamber cantatas, many featuring exquisite da capo arias renowned for their lyrical elegance and dramatic intensity.

Alessandro Scarlatti became known as the “father of the Neapolitan school of Opera,” and his melodies feature fluid phrasing and innovative orchestration. It’s like a mixture of Baroque ornamentation with a proto-Classical clarity.

Alessandro Scarlatti

To commemorate his passing on 22 October 1725, let’s highlight the 10 most frequently performed and recorded arias, pieces that evoke deep emotions ranging from tender longing to stormy passion.  

Radiant Dawn of Love

Alessandro Scarlatti crafted “Già il sole dal Gange” (Already the Sun from the Ganges) at the remarkably young age of 19 for his second opera, L’honestà negli amori (Honesty in Love Affairs).

It premiered on 3 February 1680 at the Teatro di Palazzo Bernini in Rome under the patronage of Queen Christina of Sweden. The work explores themes of romantic intrigue in an Algerian setting, and the aria is sung by the character “Saldino,” a pageboy.

The music pulses with a buoyant optimism, with the first rays of sunlight dancing across a serene river. This radiant dawn aria, with its soaring, sunlit phrases and graceful melismas, captures youthful love’s awakening. It is still a staple in vocal pedagogy today for its pure and flowing melodic line.  

Love’s Anguish

Alessandro Scarlatti

Scarlatti’s opera Il Pompeo premiered in Rome in 1683, and it draws on the historical figure of Pompey the Great. Weaving a tale of political intrigue and personal betrayal, the aria “O cessate di piagarmi” (Oh, Cease to Torment Me) expresses the anguish of love’s torment, a recurring theme in Scarlatti’s operas.

Even at this early stage in his career, Scarlatti had already mastered the art of the da capo aria, using its ABA structure to deepen emotional contrast. It is a beautiful aria that pulses with raw, aching emotion.

The music unfolds like a quiet cry of the heart, its languid melody weaving a tapestry of longing and despair. Scarlatti distilled complex human suffering into a concise and expressive form.

Sighs of Solitude

Let’s stay with Il Pompeo for our next selection. “Toglietemi la vita ancor” (Take Away My Life Again) is a piercingly intense aria that lays bare the depths of despair and resignation.

The music moves at a very deliberate, almost funereal pace, its melody a fragile thread of anguish woven through a delicate web of sighs. The vocal line, with its aching leaps and lingering phrases, feels like a whispered plea for release from unbearable suffering.

Each note is heavy with the weight of betrayal and lost love, and the sparse continuo accompaniment underscores the solitude. The aria’s stark beauty and raw emotion have made it a lasting gem, and it is frequently performed independently.

Floral Fantasy

Alessandro Scarlatti

Alessandro Scarlatti composed “Le violette” (The Violets) for his opera Pirro e Demetrio, a work that premiered in Naples in 1694. It tells a tale of love and rivalry set against the backdrop of ancient kingdoms, focusing on the characters Pyrrhus and Demetrius.

The aria uses the metaphor of violets to express delicate, amorous sentiments, a common Baroque device. Scarlatti’s setting showcases his skill in crafting lyrical, expressive arias within the da capo form, balancing emotional depth with virtuosic elegance.

This aria blooms with delicate charm and youthful longing as the music dances with a gentle, almost pastoral grace. This delicate pastoral gem with lilting rhythms and floral imagery in the vocal line blends sweetness and melancholy in a da capo form that unfolds like a blooming flower. 

Hypnotic Embrace

Alessandro Scarlatti composed “Dormi o fulmine di Guerra” (Sleep, O Thunderbolt of War) for his oratorio Giuditta. Unlike his operas, this sacred oratorio is based on the biblical story of Judith and Holofernes and focuses on dramatic storytelling through music without staging.

The aria, sung by Judith to the sleeping Holofernes, is a moment of tender irony, as she lulls the Assyrian general to sleep before killing him. It is essentially a lullaby that unfolds with a tender and almost hypnotic rhythm.

The vocal line, with its soft and undulating phrases, conveys a sense of calm and compassion, urging rest and peace upon a figure of strength and turmoil. The aria evokes a poignant blend of tranquillity and reverence, and it is often extracted for a standalone performance.

Moonlit Shadows

The cantata Correa nel seno amato (As the sun hastened toward its beloved) premiered in Naples in 1699. A semi-dramatic work, it was performed for courtly celebrations, and likely commissioned for a private aristocratic event.

The aria “Ombre opache” (Opaque Shadows) reflects a moment of emotional and dramatic intensity, and cast in da capo form, it uses subtle ornamentation and harmonic shading to evoke a vivid emotional landscape.

Undulating phrases over a continuo bass evoke a moonlit reverie with subtle harmonic shifts allowing the music to drift like a shadow over a misty landscape. The sinuous melody weaves a sense of quiet dread and longing.

The delicate vocal line feels like a whispered confession, heavy with the weight of hidden sorrow and forbidden desire. The sparse and mournful continuo accompaniment enhances the atmosphere of solitude and evokes a profound sense of introspection and unease.

Tomb-Side Whisper

Alessandro Scarlatti

The opera Mitridate Eupatore premiered in Vence in 1707. This operatic masterpiece centres on the historical figure Mithridates VI of Pontus, and weaves a tale of betrayal, power, and personal tragedy.

This tomb-side lament features profound and arching lines spiced up with chromatic descents. Blending sorrow with sublime tenderness, this heart-wrenching aria pulses with raw grief and tender devotion.

Unfolding at a funereal pace, this delicate lament seems to cradle the weight of loss. Drawn-out phrases and subtle ornaments convey a sense of intimate sorrow, as the character is whispering to a departed loved one. Here, Scarlatti captures human vulnerability, making it a standout piece often performed independently in recitals.

Tragedy in the Minor Key

Alessandro Scarlatti’s Griselda – title page of the libretto

Premiered in January 1721 in Rome, Griselda is based on Boccaccio’s tale of a woman tested by the cruel trials of loyalty and love. Composed late in Scarlatti’s career, this opera reflects the composer’s refined mastery of the da capo aria, lending dramatic expressiveness with intricate vocal writing.

The aria “Figlio! Tiranno! O Dio!” (Son! Tyrant! O God!) is a visceral outpouring of anguish and conflict, charged with dramatic intensity. Set in a turbulent minor key, the aria surges with a restless, almost frantic energy.

Its jagged melodic lines and abrupt rhythmic shifts mirror a heart torn between love, betrayal, and despair. Marked by impassioned leaps and anguished phrasing, this aria feels like a cry wrenched from the depths of a tormented soul. Here, raw emotion meets melodic elegance.

Fleeting Beauty—Eternal Music

The serenata Ferma omai, fugace e bella (Stay Now, Fleeting and Beautiful), was probably written for a private occasion, and it celebrates mythological and pastoral themes common to the genre.

The aria, “Va, va che I lamenti miei” (Go, Go, for My Laments), brims with yearning and resignation. The music flows with a graceful yet sorrowful lilt, its melody weaving a delicate tapestry of heartbreak and quiet defiance.

Alessandro Scarlatti, a cornerstone of the Neapolitan Baroque, masterfully blended lyrical expressiveness with dramatic intensity, crafting arias that capture the depths of human emotion with vivid melodic lines and refined da capo structures.

As we commemorate his 300th anniversary, we celebrate his artistry of infusing both sacred and secular works with profound emotional resonance. Just listen to the aria “While I Rejoice in Sweet Oblivion” for the seamless balance between virtuosic flair and evocative storytelling. His innovative use of melody, harmony, and orchestration ensures his works remain timeless.