Martha Argerich and Friends Live from the Lugano Festival 2015 Martha Argerich

• Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1897): Trio in E flat, Op.40:
• 1I. Andante, poco più animato07:52
• 2II. Scherzo: Allegro06:47
• 3III. Adagio. Mesto07:52
• 4IV. Finale: Allegro con brio06:32
• Robert Schumann (1810 – 1856): Six Canonic Etudes, Op.56:
• 5I. Pas trop vite02:29
• 6II. Avec beaucoup d' expression03:09
• 7III. Andantino01:38
• 8IV. Espressivo03:18
• 9V. Pas trop vite02:07
• 10VI. Adagio03:38
• Franz Schubert (1797 – 1828):
• 118 Variations in A-Flat Major, Op. 35, D. 81317:27
• Johannes Brahms:
• 12Scherzo in C Minor from Sonata F.A.E, WoO posth. 206:05
• Clarinet Trio in A minor, Op.114:
• 13I. Allegro08:36
• 14II. Adagio08:00
• 15III. Andante grazioso04:59
• 16IV. Allegro05:21
• Ferdinand Ries (1784 – 1838): Piano Quintet in B minor, Op.74:
• 17I. Grave, Allegro con brio09:31
• 18II. Larghetto04:59
• 19III. Rondo - Allegro07:26
• Joaquín Turina (1882 – 1949): Piano Trio No.2 in B minor, Op.76:
• 20I. Lento - Allegro molto moderato06:09
• 21II. Molto vivace02:34
• 22III. Lento, Andante mosso, Allegretto05:46
• Béla Bartók (1881 – 1945):
• 236 Romanian Dances, Sz. 5606:24
• Claude Debussy (1862 – 1918): En blanc et noir:
• 24I. Avec emportement04:00
• 25II. Lent, Sombre06:58
• 26III. Scherzando04:18
• Luis Bacalov (1933 - ): Porteña (Latitud 34°36'30'):
• 27Porteña03:24
• 28Nocturnal01:15
• 29Cadenza00:15
• 30Porteña (quasi jidish)03:13
• 31Secuencia (quasi) canonica00:53
• 32Gardeliana02:20
• 33Malandra01:59
• 34Tanghora02:12
• 35Bajofondo01:12
• 36Corrientes y 9 de julio04:54
• 37Finale00:48
• Francis Poulenc (1899 – 1963): Sonata for 2 pianos:
• 38I. Prologue. Extrêmement lent et calme05:12
• 39II. Allegro molto (Très rythmé)04:47
• 40III. Andante lyrico (lentement)05:48
• 41IV. Epilogue: Allegro giocoso04:19
• Philip Glass (1937 - ): Suite from Les enfants terribles:
• 42I. Overture03:11
• 43II. The Somnambulist03:27
• 44III. She Took The Path01:54
• 45IV. Paul 's End03:35
• Alberto Ginastera (1916 – 1983): Dances from Estancia, Op.8a :
• 46I. Los Trabajadores Agricolas02:37
• 47II. Danza del Trigo02:38
• 48III. Los Peones de Hacienda01:38
• 49IV. Danza Final (Malambo)03:11
• Total Runtime03:38:37

Info for Martha Argerich and Friends Live from the Lugano Festival 2015

Once again, the triple album feast of chamber music is full of excitement, surprises and inspired performances. “Few other musicians spark such adoration among peers and juniors alike as does Martha Argerich,” wrote the British magazine Pianist. The reasons for this adoration are richly in evidence at the annual Progetto Martha Argerich, part of the Lugano Festival in Switzerland.

The 15th edition of the Progetto takes place in June 2016, shortly after Argerich’s 75th birthday – it is hard to believe that 51 years have passed since she triumphed at the seventh International Chopin Competition in Warsaw, where one of the judges (Eugene List) described her as “volcanic … one of nature’s happenings”.

Argerich remains a phenomenon, both as a supreme pianist and as a dynamic, much-loved mentor to young musicians. The latest triple-album set Martha Argerich & Friends, Live from Lugano, recorded in June 2015 and the twelfth Argerich-Lugano release in the Warner Classics catalogue, once again portrays her in both roles.

One of Argerich’s great joys is communal music-making. She has not given a solo recital since 1978, preferring the less lonely pursuits of concertos, chamber music and repertoire for piano duo. Each year in Lugano, she is joined by other eminent musicians, by young artists who have become her protégés, and by former protégés who are now making significant careers. A dazzling variety of music-making ensues as they explore smaller-scale repertoire and works with orchestra.

In 2015, the Progetto Martha Argerich comprised 15 chamber concerts and recitals and two concerts with symphony orchestra. Argerich herself teamed up with other pianists for four works: with her long-time sparring partner Stephen Kovacevich for Debussy’s En blanc et noir; with Lilya Zilberstein for Debussy’s arrangement of Schumann’s Kanonische Studien; with Alexander Mogilevsky for Schubert’s 8 Variations on an Original Theme for Piano D813, and with Eduardo Hubert (born, like Argerich, in Buenos Aires) for a work by a fellow Argentinian, Luis Bacalov (b.1933), winner of an Academy Award in 1996 for his score for the film Il postino. His 11-movement suite Porteña, performed with the Orchestra della Svizzera italiana under Alexander Vedernikov, is filled with evocations of Argentina’s multicultural capital city.

Shifting to the culture of Central Europe, the young Swiss-born violinist Géza Hosszu-Legocky joins Argerich for Bartók’s Romanian Dances, arranged by Zoltán Székely. Among the celebrated musicians who also feature on the 2015 edition are pianists Nicholas Angelich and Sergio Tiempo, cellist Gautier Capuçon, violinist Ilya Gringolts, clarinettist Paul Meyer and the members of the Margulis Family Trio (pianist Jura, violinist Alissa and cellist Natalia Margulis). The rising talents include violinists Mayu Kishima and Andrey Baranov, while other composers in the eclectic repertoire on the CDs are Brahms, Ries, Turina, Poulenc, Glass and yet another Argentinian, Alberto Ginastera, whose centenary is celebrated in 2016.

As The Guardian wrote of an earlier release in Warner Classics’ Argerich-Lugano series: “Even when Argerich is not directly involved, her unique musical spirit seems to hover over the performances; there's a freshness, a sense of discovery, about all the playing here.”

Martha Argerich, piano
Eduardo Hubert, piano
Orchestra della Svizzera italiana
Alexander Vedernikov, conductor
Geza Hosszu-Legocky, violin
Alexander Mogilevsky, piano
Ilya Gringolts, violin
Nathan Braude, viola
Mayu Kishima, violin
Akane Sakai, piano
Nicholas Angelich, piano
Paul Meyer, clarinet
Gautier Capuçon, cello
Stephen Kovacevich, piano
Giorga Tomassi, piano
Carlo Maria Griguoli, piano
Alessandro Stella, piano
Lilya Zilberstein, piano
Andrey Baranov, violin
Lyda Chen, viola
Jing Zhao, cello
Enrico Fagone, double bass
Jura Margulis, piano
Alissa Margulis, violin
Natalia Margulis, cello

Martha Argerich
was born in Buenos Aires. From the age of five, she took piano lessons with Vicenzo Scaramuzza. In 1955 she went to Europe with her family, and received tuition from Friedrich Gulda in Vienna; her teachers also included Nikita 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. Her victory in the Chopin Competition in Warsaw in 1965 was a decisive step on her path to worldwide recognition.

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.

Martha Argerich has worked as a concert pianist with many famous conductors. She has also attached great importance to chamber music ever since, at the age of 17, she accompanied the violinist Joseph Szigeti - two generations older than herself. She has toured Europe, America and Japan with Gidon Kremer and Mischa Maisky and has also recorded much of the repertory for four hands and for two pianos with the pianists 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, where she gave, for instance, a recital with Mischa Maisky in 1993.

She appeared with Claudio Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic at the 1992 New Year's Eve Concert with Strauss's Burleske and also at the Salzburg Festival at Easter 1993. May 1998 saw the long-awaited musical 'summit meeting' between Martha Argerich, Mischa Maisky and Gidon Kremer. On the occasion of a memorial concert for the impresario Reinhard Paulsen, the three artists came together in Japan, where they performed piano trios by Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky (recorded live by DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON). In March 2000 Martha Argerich gave her first great solo appearance in almost 20 years in New York's Carnegie Hall.

Martha Argerich has close ties with DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON, dating back to 1967. She has recorded prolifically during this period: solo works by Bach, Brahms, Chopin, Liszt and Schumann; concerto recordings of works by Chopin, Liszt, Ravel and Prokofiev with Claudio Abbado, Beethoven with Giuseppe Sinopoli, and Stravinsky's Les Noces with Leonard Bernstein. Her recording of Shostakovich's First and Haydn's Eleventh Piano Concertos with the Württembergisches Kammerorchester Heilbronn conducted by Jörg Färber was crowned with the Tokyo RECORD ACADEMY AWARD in 1995 and that of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 with Claudio Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra was awarded the CD COMPACT AWARD in 1997.

She has also dedicated herself to chamber music, and has recorded works by Schumann and Chopin with Mstislav Rostropovich, and cello sonatas by both Bach and Beethoven with Mischa Maisky. She has made numerous successful recordings with Gidon Kremer, such as violin sonatas by Schumann and works by Bartók, Janácek and Messiaen (PRIX CAECILIA 1991), and Mendelssohn's concerto for violin and piano with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Their recording of Prokofiev sonatas and melodies received the 1992 Tokyo RECORD ACADEMY AWARD, the DIAPASON D'OR 1992 and the EDISON AWARD 1993. One of their most outstanding recording achievements was that of the complete Beethoven violin sonatas (Nos.1-3: RECORD ACADEMY AWARD 1985), which was concluded with the release of the Sonatas op. 47 'Kreutzer' and op. 96 in 1995. Among her more recent releases is the above-mentioned live recording of piano trios by Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky with Mischa Maisky and Gidon Kremer.

Martha Argerich takes a great supportive interest in young artists. In September 1999 the first International 'Martha Argerich' Piano Competition took place in Buenos Aires - a competition which does not only carry her name but in which she is president of the jury. In November 1999 the second 'Martha Argerich Music Festival' took place in southern Japan, with concerts and masterclasses being given not only by Martha Argerich but also by Mischa Maisky and Nelson Freire among others.

Booklet for Martha Argerich and Friends Live from the Lugano Festival 2015