In recent years, the great Martha Argerich has regularly returned to Argentina to offer concerts. Each new performance of this glorious artist is a unique event, but this time her return had peculiar characteristics, as she returned to headline her own festival at the Colón in the year that she celebrates the seventieth anniversary of her debut of her in this room.
Along with the legendary pianist, the Buenos Aires Philharmonic and Charles Dutoit, the famous Swiss conductor who had not conducted in a long time, participated in the opening concert.
Buenos Aires. He and Argerich were briefly married, until the early 1970s, but remain friends and have a close musical partnership. It was possible to appreciate the affection and deep understanding between them since they entered the stage of the Colón, hand in hand, to offer the Concerto for piano and orchestra in G major by Maurice Ravel.
What happened with this work was magical. Martha raised from the piano that spontaneity, full of subtleties, eloquence and virtuosity, which makes each of her performances an invitation to a hypnotic and fascinating musical journey. But, from her place as soloist, she at all times established a connection, a deep dialogue with the orchestra, achieving an impressive communion to deliver an anthological version of Ravel’s work. The second movement, a poetic and ethereal adagio, was a sublime moment.
The cheers that greeted Argerich at the end of her performance brought her back to the stage again and again. At one point, she returned accompanied by a boy dressed in an Argentine soccer team jersey: her grandson David Chen. They sat in front of the piano and offered, for four hands and as an encore, the third movement of Mi madre la oca, also by Ravel, in a reading that radiated freshness and warmth.
In the second part, the Buenos Aires Philharmonic could be heard in a state of grace interpreting the Fantastic Symphony by Hector Berlioz. With precise gestures and an imposing presence from the podium, Charles Dutoit got the best of the musicians, who responded with dedication and commitment. Solid in all its ranks, the orchestra enhanced the dramatic strength and contrasts of the work, in a masterful closing for a memorable concert.
