Proms 2026 Martha Argerich Plays Beethoven

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.

Recorded for broadcast on BBC TV and BBC iPlayer

Martha Argerich © Adriano Heitman