Once-Shy Pianist Tells, Um, Not Quite All
By Vivien Schweitzer
When the reclusive Argentine pianist Martha Argerich performs, her long, thick hair cascades over her shoulders, often entirely obscuring her face from the audience and affording a glimmer of privacy even onstage.
Ms. Argerich, who for almost two decades gave very few solo recitals, has always felt uneasy in the spotlight offstage as well. "I just saw a program called 'Big Brother,' " she says at the beginning of "Martha Argerich: Evening Talks," a 2002 film by Georges Gachot newly released on DVD by the Medici Arts label. "All those exhibitionists who like their private lives filmed. Not me."
But Ms. Argerich, a brilliant musician whose playing combines prodigious technique with uncanny musicality, overcame her shyness and granted Mr. Gachot a three-hour interview. It was shot one evening in 2001 between a rehearsal and a performance of Schumann's Piano Concerto with the Württemberg Chamber Orchestra in Heilbronn, Germany.
Read more about this at the New York Times website:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/arts/television/03schw.html
