A Queen of 19th-Century Opera Gets New Attention (Published 2021)

Martha Black and white, wide shot: filmed from the wings of a concert hall, the image shows a woman from behind, sitting at a piano in a black dress with white polka dots. She puts her fingers on the keys and starts to play.

“The concert(s) of the Argentinian pianist Martha Argerich. She is just superhuman. She is quite elderly now, but she still plays. She’s coming to the BBC Proms this year. She has cult status in our world.” TF: I now routinely listen to her. To have your mind explode, search “Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No 1 FULL Argerich Charles Dutoit” and check o

Growing fears about music coincided with booming piano sales and a mushrooming middle class. In 1824, a wellness book called The Family Oracle of Health underlined “the bad effects of music on the nerves” and claimed a single performance of a Rossini opera had caused “more than forty cases of brain fever, or violent convulsions.” Music needed a war