The music critics are correct | A Piano Evening with Martha Argerich [DVD Video]

An unusual concert... | A Piano Evening with Martha Argerich [DVD Video]

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	• A Piano Evening with Martha Argerich [DVD Video] Tdk DVD Video, 2007 average customer review:based on 6 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Another Outstanding Argerich Performance

While I agree with the previous reviewer (M.G.) that this is a marvelous DVD, I had some trouble getting past all his hagiographic gushing about Martha Argerich, larded as it is with superlatives. Admittedly she is an amazingly talented pianist, certainly among the greatest of our age, but his claims for her abilities -- 'perhaps (the greatest) of all time' -- seems over the top. Has he ever heard Liszt, Alkan, Thalberg, Busoni, or Godowsky, or whoever play? One notices also that in his review he doesn't mention either the conductor, Argerich's long-time collaborator both as conductor and duo-pianist, Alexandre Rabinovitch (or Rabinovitch-Barakovsky as he's called here), or the young and enthusiastic Flanders Symphony Orchestra. He is so focused on Argerich that he doesn't mention the one piece not involving the piano, the concert's opening work, the invigorating Classical Symphony of Prokofiev. Nor does he mention that this is an outdoor concert, although it must be said that from an audio point of view, one would never have known it; the audio is just fine, as is the camera work.

But he is right in saying this is clearly Argerich's show. Following the Prokofiev symphony is his all-too-rarely-played First Piano Concerto in D Flat which, when I hear it, always makes me feel all's right with the world. That long vaulting first melody in the first movement is a creation of genius. Argerich plays the whole thing with panache and grace as well as surpassing virtuosity.

And since this is a 'Piano Night with Martha Argerich' the pattern of most orchestral concerts is broken by the appearance next on the bill of Schumann's First Violin Sonata with Renaud Capuçon and Argerich. Schumann wrote reams of chamber music and most of it gets played a lot, but one rarely hears the violin sonatas for some reason. It's certainly not because the First Sonata is a weak work; indeed, it is a quintessentially Romantic piece which, if one allows it, can sweep one away in a storm of emotion. I particularly liked Capuçon's tender approach to the delectable middle movement and his scampering lightness in the finale. Capuçon is a rising violinist star in the international music world and his playing here makes it clear why. But he is as much as anything else a chamber music player, often with his equally talented brother Gautier, a cellist. So this is not a virtuoso violinist star turn, but a truly collaborative effort and it is not surprising that Argerich is no shrinking violet as an accompanist; this is as it should be. Indeed, the piano is an equal partner to the violin in this sonata.

The concert concludes with Beethoven's Triple Concerto with Argerich, Capuçon and the latter's brother, Gautier, cello. It is often said that the triple concerto has an 'easy' piano part, especially when it is compared with the violin and cello parts. I've never quite understood this notion, as there are some pianistic fireworks that only very good pianists can bring off. Further, the pianist provides much of musical glue for the work just as the piano often does in piano trios. This is fairly typical mid-period Beethoven (1804) coming as it did just before the Fourth Piano Concerto. The performance here is exalted. The frères Capuçon are marvelously matched tonally and musically and Argerich is clearly of one mind with them; her experience as a chamber music player is, of course, well known and that comes in particularly helpful here. The orchestra, for all its enthusiasm, is perhaps a notch or two below world-class. This didn't bother me particularly but it does bear mentioning. Rabinovitch conducts with sensitivity and a freedom of pulse that allows the soloists to breathe.

One notes that Argerich plays from score in the Triple Concerto and I say huzzah to that. I've never quite understood why soloists must play from memory. But a discussion of that is, I suppose, for another day.

A hearty recommendation, and especially for Argerich's legion of fans.

Scott Morrison

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The music critics are correct

Martha Argerich 2005 performance with the Flanders Symphony
in which she played by herself, accompanied a violinst and
was the pianst in the Beethoven Triple. Demonstrated to me that the critics who state that Martha is the greatest pianst for the
20 and 21 century.

An unusual concert...

What a wonderful opportunity to be there...at the Roque d'Antheron Festival, the greatest piano festival in France, THANKS to this DVD!

The festival is very hard to reach, few hotels, you need a car and
a map...and, like Ravinia, it is an 'open air' festival, so you get
some bird singing added to the music! And sure it looks very hot
during the summer season there!

The DVD is great, but I wish it would show us a bit of the Roque's
surroundings, because only very few people from abroad reach this
wonderful place (I wanted to attend the Byron Janis 'comeback' at the
Roque years ago, but it was impossible!)

I do not need to add anything to the very good reviews by the Amazon
members, just two things: first of all, this was an unusual program:
Prokofiev, Schumann and then Beethoven! And a Violin Sonata in the
middle! A risky, but good idea (not even Boulez has had such a programme
as far as I know)... and the concert is...well, unforgettable.

Many concerts are so 'stiff' nowdays (Beethoven Concerto plus a Tchaikovsky Symphony) that new, innovative combinations are a plus:
we refine our ears, our intellect with them!

My only regret is that Alexander Rabinovitch did not get the career
he deserved. His Diabelli Variations and then his Kreisleriana were
wonderful recordings but did not sell well. He gave -as far as I know-
very few solo recitals in Europe or the USA, a pity! As a composer
he is known only by a selected 'few'... And he seems to be an
excellent conductor, full of energy and he is in command of this
rather modest orchestra, making it sound like a first rate one...
Perhaps he looks stressed, older than Dudamel, perhaps he lacks charisma,
but...isn't he a great musician?
Any comments by anybody who knows his work as a pianist, composer
or conductor would be very welcome!

Best,
Rudy

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An evening with this admirable soloist!

This DVD captures to Mrs. Argerich in absolute plenitude of her overpowered gifts with a variegated program.

Alexander Rabinovitch demonstrates his persuasive temperament as conductor, making a terrific version about Prokoviev's Classical Symphony Op. 25.

Then, soloist and orchestra performed an electrifying version of Prokoviev's First Piano Concerto, filled and hovered of that mercurial display of eruptive fierceness and sheer lyricism.

Then came the performance of Schumann's Violin Sonata, frank, honest, virile and incisive without romantic meanderings.

The jewel of the crown turned around the magisterial performance about Beethoven's Triple Concerto. Interpretative solvency and remarkable exhibition of noblesse and expressiveness.

If you want to give yourself a deserved gift or in case you want to give a musical gift to a beloved person, don't think it over and go for this one.

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