Review: Pianists Martha Argerich and Stephen Kovacevich join forces: It’s rare, strange and special

It now has been well over a half-century since Martha Argerich’s captivating debut recital recording, most of which was made in 1960 when she was 19, created an instant mystique for an Argentine pianist with the sultry beauty of a film star. That was, of course, something.

But what has become much more than something is that over the ensuing five decades plus, not only have Argerich’s allure and mystique never diminished, they have continued, along with her unerring artistry, to increase. Even Garbo couldn’t boast such a run.

Argerich’s appearances can be rare — she is so notorious for canceling that presenters must have a plan B. Moreover, even a seemingly normal performance, say, a warhorse concerto with an orchestra, is likely to be unpredictable.

Saturday night when Argerich appeared in a two-piano recital with Stephen Kovacevich at Walt Disney Concert Hall, the occasion was rare, strange and, as always, special. It was rare in that it was Argerich’s only U.S. concert appearance this season (she was in Washington in December to accept a Kennedy Center honor).

But elsewhere, Argerich has been particularly active of late. By the lucky chance of being in the right place at the right time, I heard her in August at the Lucerne Festival play a Liszt Concerto that she toured with Daniel Barenboim’s West-Eastern Divan Orchestra of young Israeli and Arab musicians and last month perform with Gidon Kremer in a Berlin celebration of the violinist’s 70th birthday. The only thing peculiar about these consummate performances was that at 75, Argerich’s vitality and facility remain as arresting as ever.

At Disney, however, there were indications that a little something might be up. The pianos on the stage were placed side by side rather than facing each other. Then there was an inexplicable announcement that since one pianist had hurt a hand and the other broken a tooth, Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances would come before three Debussy pieces, not after, the original order.

What might also seem a little odd is that Argerich was briefly married to the American pianist, from San Pedro and known then as Stephen Bishop, in the 1970s. They have a daughter, Stephanie Argerich, who made an unflinchingly personal film about her mother called “Bloody Daughter.”

There are explanations. The pianists couldn’t face each other because, though a man of normal height, Kovacevich prefers to sit so low to the ground (the legs of his stool had to be cut) that he couldn’t otherwise see Argerich over his music stand. He is the one who hurt his hand. She broke her tooth the night before. They thus wanted to play the most demanding work first, when they felt strongest.

As for playing with an ex, that too happens to be the Argerich way; another former husband, Charles Dutoit, is a regular accompanist. What made Saturday’s recital curious was that it would be hard to imagine two more different pianists than Argerich and Kovacevich.

He is introspective. He plays very quietly, able to find hundreds of subtly expressive dynamic nuances in mezzo forte, the normally boring neither loud nor soft. Revealing little of Argerich’s flair, he gives the impression of having probed the essence of every note he plays.

She, on the other hand, might seem driven by the flair of adrenaline. She doesn’t need to think about technique. The music is inside her, and making a piano speak appears as natural to her as song is to a bird in the forest.

But the dynamic between the two was not so straightforward. Kovacevich might seem like the Zen monk, but Argerich is actually the more Zen in her ability to be, as a musician, in the moment. Reacting to everything Kovacevich did, she brought out all of his specialness, while remaining, as she always is, the center of attention. The fact that Kovacevich was seated so Schroeder-like low to the ground further gave the impression of her being the dominating presence, even when she clearly was not trying to be. Another factor, the effects of which were impossible to gauge, was that neither was physically 100%.

Ultimately, though, it was what they did together that mattered. In Rachmaninoff’s two-piano arrangement of his Symphonic Dances, more an Argerich specialty than a Kovacevich one, their lush pianistic textures produced the illusion of their creating a whole string section out of thin air. Playing the first piano part, Kovacevich conveyed a rapt lyricism that Argerich amplified, while she also made sure the score’s theatricality remained front and center.

In Debussy’s transcription of his “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun,” Kovacevich’s lyrical touch was as limpid as the solo flute it mimicked; Argerich surrounded that by fashioning a fount of Debussyan orchestral colors. After switching pianos (and stools!), they replaced the insistent dance of seduction that characterizes Debussy’s early “Lindaraja” with a more interesting refined seduction.

Nor was “En Blanc et Noir” black and white. The three movements, written three years before Debussy’s death in 1915, are haunted by World War I. Vivid piano sonorities had the brilliance of bright red blood; explosions left in their wake only pastels and grays. They turned the middle section, dedicated to a French officer, into an antiwar statement by making visceral the horror of loss.

The three encores continued unpredictably. Tchaikovsky’s “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies” glittered like it might with a dozen harps. They tried a different approach, a new seduction with Debussy’s “Lindaraja.” Finally these former lovers left an indelibly touching image, seated at the same piano — she on her high bench, he on his low one, like Mutt and Jeff — playing a Brahms love song with exquisite tenderness.

mark.swed@latimes.com