Martha Argerich/Stephen Kovacevich, Wigmore Hall, London, review: Age yields to youth in pianist's 75th birthday recital

Sometimes Kovacevich’s brain moved faster than his fingers, but Schubert’s D960 sonata sang as it needed to

Stephen Kovacevich performs alongside Martha Argerich (Simon Jay Price)

Martha Argerich is fiercely loyal to her past partners on stage and in life, and since Stephen Kovacevich – her third husband – ticks both those boxes, it was natural that she should partner him for his 75th birthday recital. They came on like the old couple they are, but as the exultant fortissimo opening of Debussy’s En blanc et noir tore out of their twin Steinways the years dropped away. She sat high on her stool, and he was almost sitting on the floor, but they were well matched: patriotic anger had fired the ailing Debussy to write this work, and here it was filtered through brilliant four-hand pianism.

Then came Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances, its first movement delivered with thunderous force, and its poised and mysterious waltz presented as though they were wrestlers circling round each other; the Dies Irae theme rang out like a memento mori in the danse macabre.

Then it was time for the birthday boy to play solo: Schubert’s farewell D960 sonata had imprecisions and unevenness of voicing, and sometimes Kovacevich’s brain moved faster than his fingers, but the work sang as it needed to. For his encore he called the violinist Alina Ibragimova up on stage, and gently accompanied her rendering of Rachmaninov’s Vocalise. Age yielding gracefully to youth: thus does the river of classical music flow on through the centuries.