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Doremi Records5
Martha Argerich Live/ Volumes 13-17
Martha Argerich, piano
DOREMI DHR-8201-12
For many years now, Jacob Harnoy has been producing a remarkable series of live Martha Argerich CDs on his label, DOREMI, and this latest batch includes one unforgettable performance after another. While Argerich has made dozens of recordings, mostly in-studio for Deutsche Grammophon, the Argentinian pianist is best appreciated live.
Her electric live performances of the Chopin and Schumann concertos, conducted by Klaus Tennstedt (Volume 15), or the two-piano version of Ravel’s La Valse interpreted with the late Nelson Freire, recorded in Amsterdam in 1980, are a testament to this. Vol. 13 features her only known recording of Chopin’s Nocturne Op. 27/2.
Argerich partners with a couple of former spouses: Stephen Kovacevich in Vol. 16 for Bartók’s Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion and, in Vol. 14, with conductor Charles Dutoit for the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 (recorded in performance in 1973) as well as the Ravel concerto (1959) in Vol. 16.
Much of the repertoire duplicates what Argerich has done commercially, but she is never dull, or mechanical, and manages to bring out new colours even in the most familiar pieces.
Argerich is famed for her performances of works of the greatest technical difficulty—Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev come to mind—but her Mozart is pretty special as well. In Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 18 K. 456, she partners with Eugen Jochum and the Bavarian Radio Symphony for an inspired performance. This broadcast performance was first released in 2000 on BR Klassik, and it is good to have it available again.
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