Chopin: The Legendary 1965 Recording (2021 Remastered Version) Martha Argerich

• Frédéric Chopin (1810 - 1849): Piano Sonata No. 3 in B Minor, Op. 58:
• 1 Chopin: Piano Sonata No. 3 in B Minor, Op. 58: I. Allegro maestoso 08:49
• 2 Chopin: Piano Sonata No. 3 in B Minor, Op. 58: II. Scherzo 02:41
• 3 Chopin: Piano Sonata No. 3 in B Minor, Op. 58: III. Largo 08:40
• 4 Chopin: Piano Sonata No. 3 in B Minor, Op. 58: IV. Finale. Presto non tanto 04:49
• Frédéric Chopin:
• 5 Chopin: Mazurka No. 36 in A Minor, Op. 59 No. 1 03:49
• 6 Chopin: Mazurka No. 37 in A-Flat Major, Op. 59 No. 2 02:51
• 7 Chopin: Mazurka No. 38 in F-Sharp Minor, Op. 59 No. 3 03:05
• 8 Chopin: Nocturne No. 4 in F Major, Op. 15 No. 1 03:39
• 9 Chopin: Scherzo No. 3 in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 39 07:07
• 10 Chopin: Polonaise No. 6 in A-Flat Major, Op. 53 "Heroic" 06:37
• Total Runtime 52:07

Info for Chopin: The Legendary 1965 Recording (2021 Remastered Version)

Martha Argerich has been described as “unquestionably one of the greatest pianists of all time”. She recorded a Chopin recital for EMI (now Warner Classics) in 1965, shortly after her victory in the prestigious Chopin Competition, but it only became available in 1999, when it appeared on CD. For Argerich's 75th birthday on 5 June, it finally sees its first release on LP, the format originally intended.

“Argerich was quite the most formidable player we had ever come across,” writes the album’s producer, Suvi Raj Grubb, “Nothing would have been beyond this woman.” All this adds up to a recording that is indeed legendary. – Warner Classics

“Suvi Raj Grubb, producer gives us the fly-on-the-wall details of one of the most remarkable recording sessions for piano ever:

“When I started to get interested in music it took some time for me to come to terms with the piano. But by the time I joined EMI (now Warner Classics) I loved piano music and was very knowledgeable about it, so whenever a new pianist appeared I was first choice as producer.

By 1966 I had made a clutch of piano records, one of the best of which never saw the light of day. When Martha Argerich walked into the studio it was her dark, smouldering looks which first struck me. As soon as she arrived she asked for coffee; when I offered her a cup she gulped it down in one go and asked for more. I sat her in the studio with a large pot of coffee and went into the control room.

At first, her hands moved casually over the keyboard as she tested the piano. Then she launched into Chopin’s Polonaise Op.53. I sat up in my chair with a long drawn out ‘Jee-sus’ – the balance engineer said ‘Wow!’

If this was a sample of her playing, Argerich was quite the most formidable player we had ever come across. The big chords sounded huge, the runs between them clean; in the trio, a great showpiece, the difficult left-hand octave runs were even and the crescendo controlled. I peeped into the studio to make sure that this wash of sound was really originating from the slip of a girl seated at the piano. It was quite unbelievable.

I smiled as I recollected Clara Schumann’s remark to Brahms about the Paganini Variations, regretting that it was beyond a woman pianist’s capability. Nothing would have been beyond this woman.

She came into the control room, looked at me and beamed, for she knew she had had a shattering impact on me. Over the next few days, fortified by gallons of strong, black coffee, she finished a Chopin recital which included the third Sonata, the third Scherzo and, fashioned like miniature jewels, a group of Mazurkas and Nocturnes. The last movement of the Sonata is in one flawless take. She said she had enjoyed the sessions; she liked the sound of the piano on the record, and looked forward to working with me again.

To my bitter disappointment, we learnt a few weeks later that her commitment to another company would not permit us to publish the record, and, not for the first time nor the last, I wished that there were no such things as exclusivity clauses. In due course a record with the same repertoire was released by our rivals – when I heard it I knew that our Argerich was the better of the two.”

"this brilliant recording deserves its legendary appellation...Argerich performs with such white-hot intensity that it scarcely feels like a studio recording. Her volcanic energy can leave you scrambling..." (BBC Music Magazine)

Martha Argerich, piano

Digitally remastered

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.

This album contains no booklet.