CD Review (The Straits Times, September 2017)

MARTHA ARGERICH & FRIENDS

Live From Lugano 2016

Warner Classics 0190295831653 (3 CDs) / *****

The Project Martha Argerich at the Lugano Festival came to a memorable close last year after 15 years of outstanding chamber music making by the then 75-year-old Argentine piano super-virtuoso and her partners, young and not-so-young. 

The highlight was her return to solo performance, represented by no less then Ravel's Gaspard de la nuit, a thrilling reading which turns back the clock to her youthful prime in the 1970s. There is also Ravel's Piano Concerto in G major with the Orchestra della Svizerra Italiana conducted by Alexander Vedernikov, which bristles with verve and high octane vibes at every turn, as one expects from this jazz-influenced masterpiece.

New to her discography is Beethoven's Choral Fantasy (conducted by Diego Fasolis), a quasi-concerto with piano and voices which is preliminary sketch for the Ode to Joy finale of the Choral Symphony. Argerich is simply commanding in its improvisatory solo and rightly draws prolonged cheers. 

In two-piano repertoire, she is joined by Sergei Babayan in Mozart's Sonata in D major (K.448) and ex-husband Stephen Kovacevich in Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Fawn, performances which excite merely by means of felicitous touches and knowing nuances. 

The balance of three well-filled discs includes music by Bach, Berg, Busoni, Brahms, Falla and Nisinman, the variety and quality of which amounts to signing off with a big bang.       

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, July 2016)

MARTHA ARGERICH & FRIENDS

LIVE FROM LUGANO 2015

MARTHA ARGERICH et al

Warner Classics 0825646285495 (3 CDs) / *****

The feast of chamber music continues with this ongoing series of highlights from the Martha Argerich Project at the Lugano Festival, inspired by the 75-year old Argentina-born piano virtuosa's irrepressible pianism. Even if she appears spottily in just five works, there is much to enjoy. 

Argerich partners fellow compatriot Eduardo Hubert in  Luis Bacalov's Portena (Latitud 34'36'30''), a concerto for two pianos and orchestra in tribute to her hometown of Buenos Aires, where tango meets high art. In Debussy's En blanc et noir, also for two pianos, she is joined by Stephen Kovacevich (father of her third daughter Stephanie) in a heady and exciting reading.

From the Pianos Trio of Griguoli, Stella and Tomassi comes more arrangements for 6-hands of music by Philip Glass and Alberto Ginastera. Elsewhere the familiar (Brahms' Clarinet Trio and Horn Trio, Bartok's Romanian Dances) sits happily with the obscure (Ferdinand Ries' Piano Quintet and Joaquin Turina's Piano Trio No.2), and no readings by Argerich's younger colleagues are less than fully committed. There are rumblings that this year’s festival might be the last, so every minute of passionate music-making here is precious.

HUBERMAN FESTIVAL 1982

Soloists with Israel Philharmonic

Zubin Mehta (Conductor)

DG Eloquence  482 2728 (2 CDs) / *****

This year marks the 80^th anniversary of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, founded as the Palestine Orchestra by Polish-Jewish violinist Bronislaw Huberman in 1936. In December 1982, the orchestra's Music Director for Life Zubin Mehta gathered a stellar cast of Jewish violinists to perform in the week-long Hubermann Festival, the highlights of which have been included in this double disc set. 

The first CD has Isaac Stern, Pinchas Zukerman, Shlomo Mintz and Itzhak Perlman, each playing one concerto from Vivaldi's The Four Seasons. The sense of occasion and camaraderie between soloists and orchestra is clearly palpable.

Heard for the first time on CD are Bach's Double Violin Concerto in D minor with Stern and Mintz, and Vivaldi's popular Concerto For 4 Violins in B minor, where they are joined by Ivry Gitlis and Ida Haendel for an irresistible romp. The second disc is completed by the famous account of Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante in E flat major with Perlman (violin) and Zukerman (viola), memorable for its tonal warmth and lyricism. 

This gathering has been humorously nicknamed the “Kosher Nostra” or “Stern gang”, but everyone knows the Jewish make the best violinists and what a party they had. The pleasure and privilege of listening is all ours. 

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, July 2015)

MARTHA ARGERICH & FRIENDS

LIVE FROM LUGANO 2014

Warner Classics 0825646134601 (3 CDs) 

*****

The one defining feature of the Lugano Festival's Martha Argerich Project besides the legendary Argentine pianist's infectious musicianship is the sheer wealth of programming diversity on display, combining the familiar with the arcane. Her appearance in Mozart's popular Piano Concerto No.20 with the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana conducted by Jacek Kaspszyk finds her in typically fiery form, revelling in the music's stürm und drang (storm and stress).

There are two piano quintets offered, a sassy arrangement of Milhaud's jazz ballet La Creation du Monde (Creation of the Earth) and Borodin's lovely but rarely-heard Piano Quintet. An absolute rarity is Busoni's transcription of Mendelssohn's Mozart-influenced First Symphony for two pianos and eight hands shared by Akane Sakai, Lilya Zilberstein, Anton & Daniel Gerzenberg, who rip into the work with real relish.

Cello fanciers will enjoy the sonatas by Frank Bridge and Francis Poulenc, performed by Gautier Capucon with pianists Gabriela Montero and Francesco Piemontesi respectively. Argerich's favourite chamber music partners, the veterans Mischa Maisky and Gidon Kremer also make cameos in Beethoven's Bei Männern Variations from Mozart's The Magic Flute and Polish-Russian composer Miecyslaw Weinberg's Violin Sonata No.5. These sparkling live performances capture the true collegial spirit of chamber music, and this budget-priced box-set should be snapped up without delay.

ÉTUDE

CLARE HAMMOND, Piano

BIS 2004 / ****1/2

This album may have alternatively been named “Future of the Étude”, as it follows the piano study from its humbler origins as mere finger exercises well into the 21^st century. It was Chopin and Liszt in the early to mid-19^th century who transformed the étude into an aesthetically pleasing art form. The Russian Sergei Lyapunov was clearly inspired by Liszt to write his own 12 Transcendental Études (1900), of which three – Terek, Nuit d'ete and Tempete - have been chosen for their variety of expressive devices. Here the prodigious pianism of Liszt is united with the Russian nationalism of Balakirev and Borodin.

The 12 Studies Op.33 (1916) of Pole Karol Szymanowski are barely one minute long each, but filled with light and colour which take on the hues of Debussy's impressionism. The Korean Unsuk Chin was a student of the Hungarian György Ligeti and her Six Études (1995-2003) pay tribute to his own Etudes, wondrous essays of rhythmic and textural complexity which are modernistic, dissonant yet totally engaging. Finally, the Ukrainian Nikolai Kapustin's 5 Études in Different Intervals Op.68 (1992) employ the blues, jazz harmonies and syncopations in service of entertaining finger-twisters. The young British pianist Clare Hammond's readings of divergent styles are a revelation, and make a welcome entry into an over-populated world of recorded pianophilia.