Lebrecht Weekly – Argerich and Barenboim: Live from Buenos Aires (DG)

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Martha Argerich Daniel Barenboim Live from Buenos Aires

The question is, what took them so long? Martha Argerich and Daniel Barenboim, born a year apart in Buenos Aires to Jewish mothers of Russian extraction, have left it until their mid-seventies to discover common ground. Both prodigious pianists, they sailed for Europe where their paths diverged.

Argerich won the Busoni and Chopin competitions and worked intensively with Italian conductors, notably Abbado, Muti, Sinopoli and Chailly. Barenboim determined from an early age to be an orchestral conductor. He had no need for other pianists. When he put on a concerto he could play it himself (or call in his mentor, Arthur Rubinstein). Argerich was renowned for her terrifying speeds and unflinching accuracy. Barenboim, as a pianist, was prone to human error while pursuing the bigger picture. They might have inhabited separate planets.

Until last summer, when they returned to Buenos Aires to play four-hand piano, playing as if they had played together all their lives. The intuition on this recording defies belief. The pair start out with six little-known Schumann canons, designed for middle-class drawing rooms. All very after-you, but that’s just the warm-up.

Debussy’s En blanc et noir is no piece for amateurs or chicken-livers. A tempo risk taken or declined can run the work totally out of sync. These two pianists achieve total trust from the opening note and take more risks than you’d think possible.

The climax is an account of Bartok’s Sonata for Two Pianos and percussion that, from a deceptively sedate starting point runs positively riot into all manner of cross-rhythms, atonalities, jazz, jumping beans and – did I hear that right? – tango. This is two-piano playing taken to altogether another level. You’re unlikely to hear better four-hand as long as you live.

—Norman Lebrecht

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About Author

Norman Lebrecht is a prolific writer on music and cultural affairs. His blog, Slipped Disc, is one of the most popular sites for cultural news. He presents The Lebrecht Interview on BBC Radio 3 and is a contributor to several publications, including the Wall Street Journal and The Standpoint. Visit every Friday for his weekly CD review // Norman Lebrecht est un rédacteur prolifique couvrant les événements musicaux et Slipped Disc, est un des plus populaires sites de nouvelles culturelles. Il anime The Lebrecht Interview sur la BBC Radio 3 et collabore à plusieurs publications, dont The Wall Street Journal et The Standpoint. Vous pouvez lire ses critiques de disques chaque vendredi.

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