Pianist of measureless mystique: legendary Martha Argerich enjoys making music with internationally renowned artists, while sharing her passion with aspiring musicians in her native Argentina.

• Author: Bach, Caleb
• Position: Interview - Biography

It is late summer in the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts. At Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, guest conductor Charles Dutoit is about to start rehearsing Maurice Ravel's Piano Concerto in G Major. During the warm-up, the pianist appears almost anonymously, as if a mere stagehand. She is casually dressed in a patchwork blouse, baggy cargo pants resembling the bombachas of her native land, and sandals, but her refined features and mane of long black hair identify her immediately. No sooner does she drop her handbag to the floor, seat herself, and nod toward the conductor than--boom!--her assault upon the keyboard begins as she hammers out the concerto's percussive opening. Martha Argerich, Argentina's legendary pianist, is all business: astounding agility, accuracy, clarity, and structure, and yet suffusing her playing with freedom and genuine abandon.

Reviewing her recital at Tanglewood the previous night, Boston Globe music critic Richard Dyer had called the elusive Argerich "the Garbo of pianists," and described her as "enjoying a volatile, explosive conversation with her instrument, nodding in agreement, pouting, flirting, chuckling, scowling, raging--she has the expressive face of a great actress."

Indeed, her natural ability to embody the music itself characterizes her manner even during this rehearsal. As she plays she evens jabbers a bit in French to Dutoit on the podium and in Spanish to Dario Ntaca, conductor of the Orquesta Sinfonica Juvenil del Mercosur, who follows the score from a front-row seat below the platform. Upon completion even veterans of the orchestra cannot refrain from loudly stamping their feet and tapping their bows to their music stands to express admiration for the phenomenal artist in their midst.

During a brief respite before rehearsing Francis Poulenc's Concerto for Two Pianos with the young Hungarian pianist Alexander Gurning, Argerich, her ex-husband, Dutoit; their daughter, Annie; and three-year-old grandson, Lucas, pose near the keyboard for a family portrait. Argerich volunteers in flawless English, "I would enjoy a copy because we don't get together that often. I'm either on the move or at home in Brussels, Charles conducts the symphony orchestra in Montreal, and Annie and Lucas reside in New York City."

Later, despite her reputed aversion towards formal interviews, Argerich kindly continues an impromptu conversation backstage while Dutoit finishes rehearsing the orchestra in Igor Stravinsky's Firebird Suite. "I don't enjoy scheduled interviews because then I worry about what I am going to have to say," she says with an easy smile. "I like things to be spontaneous!"

About ten years ago Argerich, now sixty-three, developed skin cancer that threatened to put an end to her career. "I had a melanoma that spread to my lymph nodes and lungs," she explains. "Dr. Donald Morton at the John Wayne Cancer Institute in Santa Monica, California, treated me with an experimental vaccine that worked. I still seem to be okay, but I go back for an annual checkup. In gratitude, I gave a little benefit concert."

With typical modesty, Argerich does not go on to explain that that small affair was in fact a full-blown recital at Carnegie Hall on March 25, 2000, her first solo performance in the United States in nearly two decades. Tickets for the landmark event sold out in a flash. On the evening of the concert, critic Philip Anson described "a palpable sense of electricity in the auditorium" as the likes of Isaac Stern, Mauricio Pollini, and other world-class musicians joined concert-goers to witness her performance. The solo repertoire included a Bach partita, some Chopin, and then a rendition of Prokofiev's demanding ("knuckle-busting" is the favorite term) Sonata no. 7 in B-flat Major that critic Donald Manildi...