Argerich Lives Up to Her Legend

Martha Argerich, who returned to perform with the Los Angeles Philharmonic for the first time in 18 years Thursday night at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, has been a phenomenon in the musical world ever since she won the Chopin Competition in Warsaw in 1965. There she played an arresting, electric account of the Chopin Piano Concerto No. 1. Two years later, she made a riveting commercial recording of the concerto, which turned her into a star.

As time went on, she developed a reputation for fiery unpredictability. She regularly became the center of gossip. Just the other day someone told me a story of her drinking straight bourbon and smashing other pianists’ recordings against the wall. Who knows if it’s true? But that’s the way people talk about her.

In recent years, her legend has only increased, partly because her appearances have become rarer. It is also, of course, because big personalities at the keyboard are so scarce these days. But there is a more important reason for the legend. As she grows and deepens as a musician, she simply becomes more astonishing.

Thursday she played, once more, Chopin’s First Piano Concerto. I am at a loss to describe how all those notes she delivered turned into the living organism that the concerto became, just as I would be at a loss to understand how millions of cells make up the person who was sitting next to me. He is an old friend I know well, but he surprises me. The same with Argerich’s Chopin.

There are, of course, things that can be said about Argerich’s pianism. The passagework was dazzlingly fast and fluid--these are fingers that can do absolutely anything. She no longer sounds as if she were lighting firecrackers with the piano keys, as she does in her recordings from the ‘60s. Instead of igniting details, she now plays with a more gracious fluidity. Still you sense that every small detail has been considered, no matter how unbelievably fast a scale passage might be played (and I’ve never heard faster). When faced with an unadorned melody, she is a marvel as well. Notes hang suspended in the air or move like dancers to connect with the next.

The result is complex and fascinating. We often say that performers make music; but, in classical music, the music was made sometime earlier and the performers present us with the results. Argerich is true to Chopin, but exactly where the composer stops and the pianist starts is blurred. Some fans who stand in awe of this kind of immediacy have been filling the Internet with claims that witchcraft must be involved. One might, however, more profitably look to her collaborations with Alexandre Rabinovich, a pianist and bewitching mystical Minimalist Russian composer, whose music suits well an artist who operates at the highest and most mysterious levels.

Understandably, Argerich’s fans, standing and cheering the concerto, needed some calming down, and she did that with an exquisite account of the opening of Schumann’s “Kinderszenen.” Less understandable, many then left the hall. Yet the French conductor, Emmanuel Krivine, who was a nuanced and sensitive partner to Argerich, proved a compelling musician in his own right. Making his first appearance with the Philharmonic, he immediately achieved a sassy, pungent and unusually French sound for Berlioz’s “Roman Carnival” Overture.

“Also Sprach Zarathustra,” Strauss’ tone poem after Nietzsche’s philosophical treatise, was also unusual. Krivine uses an ornate baton technique to achieve flexible lines and thin textures--it is more the sense of drawing and watercolors than thick oils that he is after. “Zarathustra” thus came out sounding less like heavy German philosophy than ingenious French intellect. It was a fast performance and a transparent one, full of color and point that featured exciting playing, illuminated by the thrilling, piercing trumpet of Thomas Stevens and the lucid violin solos of Martin Chalifour.

* “Argerich, Krivine and the Los Angeles Philharmonic” repeat this program tonight, 8; Sunday, 2:30 p.m. Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave. $11-$65. (323) 850-2000.