Martha Argerich Plays Beethoven

Live at the BBC Proms: Martha Argerich, the Munich Philharmonic and Lahav Shani perform Farrenc's Overture No 2, Beethoven's Piano Concerto No 2 and Brahms' Symphony No 4.

Presented by Ian Skelly, live from the Royal Albert Hall, London.

Louise Farrenc: Overture No 2
Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Concerto No 2 in B flat major

c.7.45pm
Interval: The pianist Joanna MacGregor talks to Ian Skelly about Martha Argerich's legacy as the world's greatest living pianist.

c.8.05pm
Johannes Brahms: Symphony No 4 in E minor

Martha Argerich (piano)
Munich Philharmonic
Lahav Shani (conductor)

Yuja Wang calls her the ‘pure goddess’ of the piano, to others she’s simply the world’s greatest living pianist: Martha Argerich is back at the Proms, joining Lahav Shani and the Munich Philharmonic for the singing beauty and light-hearted delight of Beethoven’s Second Piano Concerto. Brahms’s final symphony offers glimpses of warmth and joy, but always shrouded in melancholy. One critic compared the work to gazing into a deep well: ‘The longer we look into it, the more brightly the stars shine back…’ The concert opens with Louise Farrenc’s dramatic Overture No. 2.