Carte Blanche —Martha Argerich, piano & Friends (DeutGram 4795096)
Critic Norman Lebrecht on Carte Blanche: “Watch Martha Argerich perform a concerto and you see an artist at work – aware of conductor and orchestra, to be sure, but immersed in her instrument and its sound, seldom coming up for air. Watch her performing chamber music, and you witness a different artist altogether. This is Martha at play, an instinctual musician in a musical conversation, every part of her body delighting in the process. Over recent years, there have been two places to catch this experience, both in Switzerland. There is her own June festival at Lugano, where Martha invites close friends, and the July event at Verbier, where she plays as a guest. This double-album is the first record of her Verbier involvement…In Beethoven’s Ghost trio, with Mischa Maisky and Julian Rachlin, the impetus flows entirely from the piano and the mood fluctuates with Martha’s trademark impulsiveness. Sixty years after the chain-smoking Argentine in a miniskirt stormed the Chopin Competition in Warsaw, no-one yet knows what she’s going to do next. A set of Schumann’s Childhood Scenes, classic Martha territory, is followed by Schubert and Ravel duets with Lang Lang, unusually subdued under the Argerich influence. Wilder by far, all caution to the wind, is her…session with Gabriela Montero in Lutoslawski's Paganini Variations, no prisoners taken in a Latin night out on the town. Then, fade to black and white, a Bartók violin sonata with Renaud Capuçon, bleak as a morning-after with flashes of desperate melancholy….[T]he music making…is so penetrating that it will wreck the rest of your day. This is an album you simply cannot walk on by.” --sinfinimusic.com
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