THE
DVD Edition
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Press
reviews & Critics
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Martha
Argerich Evening talks
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Official
Nominations of MIDEM Classical Awards 2009
O
Globo, 27 novembre
2008
por
Eduardo Fradkin
- No
camarin com Martha Argerich
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- Folha
de Sao Paulo, 5. novembre
2008
- "Filme
expoe encantos de Martha Argerich"
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- "Martha
Argerich, Conversa
noturna"
lançado no Brasil para Biscoito
Fino
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- Veja,
5.11.2008
- "recomenda"
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- O
Globo, 31.10.2008
- "Martha,
my dear"
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- Le
Temps, 7.09.2008
- Compliqué
parce que toujours paradoxale, mais simple parce que
totalement sincère et généreuse,
telle apparaît la grande pianiste, dans ce film
ou Georges Gachot a su la saisir au
débotté. Elle ne finit pas toutes ses
phrases, mais ce qu'elle à a dire touche au
coeur, parce que la crinière de la tigresse
cache tant de fragilité. Et l'humour n'est
jamais absent, par exemple quand elle se rappelle ses
premiers succès et ses première
foucades. Les documents d'archives, les extraits de
répétitions et de concerts, qui ne sont
pas les plus connus, renforcent encore
l'intérêt de ce DVD, à juste titre
couvert de prix. P.M.
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Le
Monde de la Musique, Septembre 2008
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- Classica,
Septembre 2008
- Ces
"conversations nocturnes "vont au coeur du sujet avec
patience et pudeur. Un magnifique portrait servi par
une image et un son remarquables. S.F
- pdf--->
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- Neue
Zürcher Zeitung, 15.08.2008
- Peter
Hagmann
- Martha
Argerichs Geheimnisse
- Zwanzig
Jahre lang hat Georges Gachot gefragt und gebeten,
dann endlich gab Martha Argerich ihre Zustimmung.
«Nachtgespräche» nennt der
französisch-schweizerische Filmregisseur das 2002
fertiggestellte Porträt, in dem die argentinische
Pianistin am Klavier und im Gespräch die
Hauptrolle spielt. Bewegend genug die Bilder aus
frühen Jahren: Martha Argerich als artiges
Mädchen zu Hause am Klavier, als (einzige)
Schülerin von Friedrich Gulda, als
Preisträgerin des Warschauer Chopin-Wettbewerbs,
als junge Solistin mit Dirigenten wie Erich Leinsdorf
oder später Charles Dutoit. Eine Tigerin an den
Tasten, aber im Grunde genommen ein sehr scheuer
Mensch - so wirkt sie auch in den geschickt zwischen
die Filmdokumente eingelegten Gesprächsteilen.
Sie scheint Vertrauen gefasst zu haben zu dem Filmer,
der sie diskret begleitete, jedenfalls spricht sie
munter und lebendig - und doch gibt sie wenig preis
von sich.
- Immerhin,
sie berichtet von der inneren Verbindung mit den
Komponisten, deren Musik sie spielt, auch von der
Angst, allein auf dem Podium zu sitzen, und dem
Absagen. Sehr berührend, diese anderthalb
Stunden, die jetzt auf DVD verfügbar sind.
- pdf--->
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- Naxos
Blog, July 17th. 2008
- By
Paula
- Martha
Argerich, Forever
- Generally,
I would never advocate posting press releases as blog
entries. In this case, however, I will make an
exception. The July 29 release of Martha Argerich:
Evening Talks was reason for great personal
celebration for me. Yes, I've loved her playing for
decades. And I just spent the better part of an hour
trying to dig up an old Playbill from her last solo
recital at Carnegie Hall. Much to my horror, it, along
with my Horowitz programs, has gone missing. I do,
however, have a whole bunch of eminently forgettable
Metropolitan Opera programs from the early 1980s
through the early 2000s. Don't ask.
-
- I've
told the following story many times about Argerich's
recital. I remember expecting a formal affair, where
the pianist would strut onstage in a suitably
beautiful gown, bow gracefully, and then treat us to
her great artistry. I got the last bit, which of
course is all that mattered in the end. If memory
serves, Argerich almost waddled onto the stage in a
black leotard, long black stretchy skirt, and those
hideous Mao shoes that were once "fashionable" (God
knows why). She didn't quite bow, but I do remember
her head seemed to slope downward. But for anyone who
has ever heard the great Ms. Argerich play, it made
absolutely no difference. Of course she brought the
house down
and seemed almost surprised by her
feat. It was as if she thought that what she was doing
was very simple: she was merely speaking for the
composers, pure and simple. They, in fact, were the
Gods and she was just the messenger.
-
- Below
is my love letter to the film and to Ms.
Argerich:
- "First
of all, there was this interview-which is not an
interview at all, as I do not believe I asked her a
single question. Let us, rather, call it a
conversation that took place at dead of night, without
a spotlight or makeup- a single 'night-time
conversation' recorded as if by miracle on the
magnetic tape of a comer that would then become the
very heart of this film." -Georges Gachot
-
- It
took the French film director Georges Gachot 20 years
to convince the very private and elusive Martha
Argerich to agree to appear on camera for this
intimate portrait. The resulting film, Martha
Argerich: Evening Talks (Medici Arts 3073428), pays
tribute to this great pianist's 40-year career with a
blend of informal conversations and superb performance
footage. It also contains rare archival material from
across the globe, including footage from her 1957
First Prize win at the Geneva Competition when she was
just 16.
-
- The
film allows Argerich to express her feelings about
music, composers, and musicians and to discuss her
background and early career and how they shaped her as
an artist. Argerich reminisces about her early studies
with Austrian pianist Frederich Gulda, whom she
credits with "[teaching] her how to listen."
She also recounts her yearlong stint with
Michelangeli, during which time she received only four
lessons. Moreover, she recalls the crisis she
experienced in her early 20s, which spurred fellow
Argentinean pianist (and conductor) Daniel Barenboim
to once say, "Martha, you are like a very beautiful
painting without the frame." It becomes clear that her
abandonment of solo performance so early in her career
grew partly out of the intense loneliness she felt
during this period.
-
- However,
through her commitment to concerto and chamber music
repertoire, Martha Argerich developed into a deeply
generous artist, never satisfied with herself and
always looking for new meanings and approaches to her
repertoire. "I find something new all the time," she
explains. "I hope I always will; I always doubt and
I'm always groping." She finds her deepest
satisfaction in communicating with other musicians and
communing with composers, whose music is inarguably
part of her DNA. Gulda once told her "It's not your
fault that Schumann was not Argentinean." As she plays
Schumann's Piano Concerto in A minor (effortlessly, it
would seem), the listener notes that the music appears
to be a natural extension of her being. "I hope I'm
not bad for him," Argerich remarks. "Schumann is very
intimate for me, but I hope he likes me." It is not
surprising to hear this unique artist make such a
humble comment about her work. Argerich appears
utterly possessed by the composer's essence each time
she performs his music.
-
- In
a 2001 article about Martha Argerich for The New
Yorker, critic Alex Ross wrote "Argerich brings to
bear qualities that are seldom contained in one
person: she is a pianist of brainteasing technical
agility; she is a charismatic woman with an enigmatic
reputation; she is an unaffected interpreter whose
native language is music. This last may be the quality
that sets her apart. A lot of pianists play huge
double octaves; a lot of pianists photograph well. But
few have the unerring naturalness of phrasing that
allows them to embody the music rather than interpret
it." One listen to the Scarlatti encore from her
performance in Zurich and the viewer will know exactly
what Ross means.
- Online--->
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- The
Toronto Star, Aug 05, 2008
- By
John Terauds
- DVD
Review
- "He's
been very good to me; he's never played any tricks on
me."
-
- Pianist
Martha Argerich is talking about composer Sergei
Prokofiev. For her, the personal is musical and the
musical is personal.
That
is the core message in this hour-long 2002 documentary
by Georges Cachot.
-
- Buenos
Aires native Argerich, now 67, rose to the top rank of
pianists after winning two big competitions in 1957.
But her long, still intensely active career has been
marked in seeming equal proportion with public
triumphs and private
doubts.
In
the documentary, she describes how pianist-conductor
Daniel Barenboim described her as a "beautiful
painting without a
frame."
Gachot
does the best he can to put this intensely shy artist
with a huge personality into focus, using a stream of
rehearsal and concert footage as the narrative
flesh.
-
- The
English title of the documentary is misleading, as the
rambling interview that is this film's spine was done
in one take, late one night in 2001 during a
post-post-performance gathering of Argerich
intimates.
This
headstrong, self-assured artist is still the innocent,
bewildered 16-year-old who stunned Europe more than
half a century ago. In the absence of personal detail,
her music speaks louder than any words.
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- There
are 30 minutes of concert extras. What a
treat.
- online--->
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- New
York Times, 3 August, 2008
- By
VIVIEN SCHWEITZER
- A
Film on the Reclusive Pianist Martha Argerich, Now on
DVD ...
- Once-Shy
Pianist Tells, Um, Not Quite All
-
- 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.
-
- A
scene from the documentary "Martha Argerich: Evening
Talks," which offers close-up interviews with this
Argentine pianist and archival footage.
-
- 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.
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- According
to the DVD booklet Mr. Gachot had been trying to
obtain such an interview for more than 20 years.
"Evening Talks," in which Ms. Argerich, 67, chats
candidly in French and English, is billed as the first
film about her. Intimate, close-up interview shots are
interspersed with archival footage, from her teenage
victory at the Geneva International Music Competition
in 1957 to solo, chamber and concerto appearances as
recent as 2001.
-
- Ms.
Argerich recalls her first musical epiphany. She was
6, at a concert with her mother, listening to Claudio
Arrau play Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4. The
trills in the second movement gave her goose bumps. "I
was dozing off, and suddenly," she says with a sharp
intake of breath, experienced "an electric shock." Ms.
Argerich refuses to play the concerto, she says,
because "I'm afraid what would happen, it's so
important to me."
-
- At
9, before performing a Mozart concerto, she knelt down
and thought, "If I hit one wrong note, I'll die." That
sense of perfection stayed with her.
-
- "I
always doubt," she says. "I'm always groping. If
you're too pleased with what you've done, or you get
into a routine, that's the worst. Sometimes I go out
on a limb, so it doesn't happen."
-
- Ms.
Argerich candidly recalls the crisis of loneliness she
experienced in her midteens after winning both the
Geneva competition and the Ferruccio Busoni
International Piano Competition in Bolzano, Italy. "I
was terribly shy," she says. "It was dismal. I was in
quite a state. Then when I was 19 or 20, I went
through a crisis." She spent a few years in New York
watching late-night television.
-
- Ms.
Argerich, whose last-minute cancellations have
disappointed fans, describes her first cancellation,
at 17 in Florence. She was not unwell, she says, but
thought she "didn't want to play." So she sent a
telegram to the concert organizers saying she had hurt
her finger. She then took a knife and cut her finger,
so "it would be true." The wound was so bad it also
prevented her from playing a concert the next
week.
-
- Like
other legendary performers, including the cellist
Pablo Casals and the pianist Vladimir Horowitz, Ms.
Argerich has suffered from stage fright. "Sometimes I
was in terrible panics," she says ruefully. "I'd
imagine the worst things, imagine a full hall. It's
terrible." Her knees would tremble so forcibly, she
says, that her feet would inadvertently bang on the
floor, and she suffered chills and runny
noses.
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- When
she was young, Ms. Argerich's nearsightedness was also
problematic. She didn't have contact lenses at the
time and didn't want to wear glasses onstage. So the
piano looked "like crocodile's teeth," she says, and
the bright lights made her feel "like an insect." The
film doesn't touch on other aspects of her personal
life, like her marriages to the conductor Charles
Dutoit and the pianist Stephen Kovacevich, her three
daughters or her recurring bouts with cancer, which
began in the 1990s.
-
- The
film offers footage of Ms. Argerich, who often laughs
during the interview, performing the composers she
discusses. During a rehearsal of Schumann's Piano
Concerto she vociferously argues in German with
Jörg Faerber, the conductor, dismissing his
suggestions.
-
- "I
prefer not to fool with Schumann," she says. "But I
think he likes me." She describes performing Liszt and
Chopin in the same recital: "The Liszt Sonata would be
fine but not the Chopin Preludes. So I'd say, 'He's a
little jealous.' " As for Prokofiev, she says with a
laugh: "He's very fond of me. He's never played any
dirty tricks on me." A night owl, Ms. Argerich claims
that she learned Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3 by
osmosis, while sleeping during the day in the same
room where her roommate practiced.
-
- Daniel
Barenboim once told Ms. Argerich she was "like a
beautiful painting without a frame." This film offers
fans an insightful, unguarded portrait.
- online--->
- Pdf--->
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