Search - Martha Argerich :: Argerich Plays Chopin

A YOUTHFUL MARTHA ARGERICH'S BRILLANT CHOPIN PERFORMANCES

RBSProds | Deep in the heart of Texas | 02/16/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Five BRILLIANT Stars! True Argerich Chopin treasures from the Deutsche Grammophon vault celebrating The Frédéric Chopin Year! To hear Martha Argerich play is to hear someone walking among the giants. The 3 time Grammy-winning Argentinean classical piano virtuoso is considered one of our greatest living pianists: a true child prodigy mentored by some of the greats, who lives up to her reputation of genius by thinking each piece through, applying phenomenal technique, and then playing like it's her last performance of it. And this CD from DG catches her in 1959 (age 18) and 1967 (age 26), not only during her solo music phase but within 2 years of her double victory at age 16 of the Geneva and the Ferruccio Busoni International Competitions "within weeks of each other" in one instance, and within 2 years of winning the 7th International Frédérick Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, with special prizes given her for mazurkas and waltzes, in the other instance. The youthful Ms Argerich burns with a musical passion and intensity in these performances that makes Chopin's music leap off the pages.



I have no 'best of the best' for this recording because it's all exceptional. Whether all of this is what Chopin wanted is debatable but he probably would have loved every note of it and she is very convincing. The performance of Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Opus 23 at age 18 is an incredible pianistic feat, laying it side by side with other top pianists, demonstrating 'the Argerich flair' that makes this artist so special: marvelous technique, heightened drama, and impeccable timing, all the more remarkable given her young age. This is followed 8 years later by a lightning, nuanced, performance of a teenaged Chopin's challenging Étude Opus 10, No. 4, in C sharp minor, B74 with Argerich exploding arpeggios in showers of notes as the piece ebbs and flows in ambidextrous intensity from hand to hand: clocking in at a cleanly-articulated, breathless 1:56. The Mazurka No. 36 in A minor, Opus 59, No 1; the Mazurka No. 38 in F sharp minor Opus 59 No.3; as well as the other Mazurkas and Nocturnes are both masterful and deeply emotional playing. But the Piano Sonata No.3 in B minor, Op.58, recorded live at the Hochschule fur Musik in Berlin, is the 'tour de force' of this CD, especially the Allegro maestoso, the fascinating Largo, and the stormy Finale with that last, long sizzling wall-to-wall arpeggio, all clearly demonstrating the fact that Argerich's mighty reach never exceeds her firm grasp. Recorded in great sound in four venues. Put this CD in a safe place. My Highest Recommendation. Five AMAZING Stars! (This review is based on an Amazon.com MP3 download; 64:16.)"

The closest we are likely to come to a "new"Argerich recital

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 02/18/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It will be fascinating to see if Argerich, now 68, ever returns to recitals, which became rare two decades ago and are now non-existent. For the time being, this grab bag of miscellaneous Chopin recordings are the closest thing we have to a new recital. For once I wish I had a talent for gushing, as the lead review does, because everything here is dazzling. My copy is a download, so I don't have the jacket to guide me, but here is some relevant informaiton from a helpful commenter:

-All trackes are mono

-The ballade is recorded in Berlin, 26 january 1959 (at age 18, so 6 years before she won the Chopin competition)

-The etude and the mazurkas (except op. 59) are recorded 3 december 1967 in Berlin

-The mazurkas op 59 are recorded in Köln (Cologne) 31 october 1967

-The sonata is a live recording at the Hochschule für Musik, 15 march 1967.



For the Ballade #1 in G, the sound is clean but without any fullness, a shame given the luxurious reach of this Ballade. At an early age we find Argerich gifted with a spot-on instinct for how to phrase Chopin. Compared to her developed style she's more straightforward here and considerably less volatile, but that's to compare her to herself. By any standard the performance is fully mature and assured. And to think that in 1959 the prevailing Chopinist, Arthur Rubinstein, was in the full bloom of his career as he turned seventy-two.



Happily, the piano sound in the later recordings is natural, much better than in the Ballade. At some moments I'm reminded why I was slow to catch on to Argerich. Her way with the Mazurkas is a trifle aggressive and impatient, without much regard for teasing out their nuance and off-kilter charm. You have to accept that for her, charm isn't the point. Argerich's Chopin is clear, bracing, and unsentimental. Within that framework, however, she can be quite sensitive, as she shows in the lyrical passages of the Nocturnes. The dramatic contrast she finds in the Nocturne no. 4, Op. 15 no. 1, is spectacular. Every element, from delicate moonlight to effusive passion, is perfectly poised and controlled: this reading alone would convince anyone that she is a great master.



By contrast with other performers who are more subdued in the studio than in concert, Argerich seems to have turned the tables. Her DG and EMI recordings tend to be more on-the-edge than anything here. But again, we are comparing Argerich to herself. The Third Sonata is a favorite of hers, and this 1967 performance is just as fascinating and compelling as her others. In short, I may not be gushing in prose, but I am on the inside."

Even Argerich's greatness has a limitation.

milo's pop | 06/25/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This release of broadcasts from 1959 and 1967 promises to add six new works to the Argerich discography. The truth is that nearly all the pieces here - with only one significant exception - have long been available (in other performances) on Argerich "pirates." The performances on this disc will tell Argerich's fans little, if anything, they don't already know about her: That few pianists have ever played such treacherous works as the C-sharp minor Etude, op. 10 no. 4, with such virtuosity, musicality and panache; that Argerich - despite favoring extremely fast tempos - plays the Mazurkas, Chopin's most personal and subtle works, with a vibrancy that makes her one of the great masters of this genre; that she can play an extended Chopin work, like the B minor Sonata, in an exceptional manner in which her high-pitched tension is always controlled by her artistry and taste; and that, sometimes, her passionate temperament, restless energy and nervous intensity show up as defects in her Chopin playing - as they do in a performance of the Nocturne in E-flat, op. 55 no. 2, so super-heated that its sultriness obscures the glory of the composer's contrapuntal writing.



But the one significant addition this disc makes to Argerich's discography suggests some things we did not know about this enigmatic artist: why her performances of Chopin are less consistently satisfying than those of Schumann; why she has devoted herself to such a narrow repertory; and why a pianist who has recorded in the studio celebrated performances of almost every important Chopin genre - the Mazurkas, Polonaises, Etudes, Waltzes, Preludes, Scherzos, Concertos and Sonatas -- has completely neglected one major genre: the Ballades.



Argerich performed the Ballade no. 1 in G minor in Berlin's RIAS studios early in 1959. Not quite eighteen at the time, this was, nevertheless, nearly two years after her first-prize victories in the Busoni and Geneva competitions, and at about the same time she recorded her DG debut album, a collection of brilliant performances of Brahms, Liszt, Prokofiev and Chopin (the Scherzo no. 3 in C-sharp minor). While her G minor Ballade shares some of the stellar quality of her C-sharp minor Scherzo - particularly the rapier-like reflexes combined with almost incomparable ease and flexibility - the Ballade is a failure. The way she plays the declamatory, seven-bar introduction is relatively flat and lacks the necessary narrative sweep. Her "get-on-with-it" restlessness and nervous energy make the appearance of the the second theme equally unsatisfactory. Since it is from that appearance that the narrative structure grows, the development fails to culminate in the magnificent affirmation of that subject. And, after Argerich's rather affect-less return to the plaintive G minor first subject, the performance fails to explode in the passionate desperation of the Presto con fuoco coda.



There is room in the Chopin oeuvre for a pianist who is a dramatist (the Scherzos and Polonaises), a colorist (the Nocturnes), a miniaturist (the Waltzes and Mazurkas) and a virtuoso (the Etudes). But unless a pianist also has a knack for telling a story, he or she better stay away from the Ballades. And Argerich, as this performance demonstrates, is no story-teller - at least not in Chopin. Her performances of Schumann - a composer whose works, whether in Kinderszenen or Kreisleriana, reward unremitting restlessness and neurotic intensity - are another story.



That Argerich never returned to the First Ballade or attempted to perform any of the other three suggests that she knew that her strength was for music that drove inexorably, rather than episodically, to a conclusion. And, henceforth, she would only choose repertory that played to that strength. This has meant that during her rather peculiar career - since 1979, so far as I know, she has not performed a single complete solo program in public - that she has been able to perform a relatively small number of nevertheless important pieces as well as or better than any other living pianist. It will be left to history to judge the wisdom of that choice.









"