Martha Argerich : the DG Chopin set

After Martha Argerich d Dong Hyek Lim's recital at the Festival Hall last week , it seemed only right to remind ourselves of her greatest Chopin recordings via this 5 CD (and one bluray audio) set released in 2021.

When I don't play Chopin for a while, I don't feel like a pianist

So spoke Argerich, and her Chopin has been.mainstay of Chopin recommendaions for decades. Here is, in one place, he completed DG recordings, including the two concertos and, ass if to acknowledge her continuing commitment to chamber music, two versions of the Cello Sonata (Maisky and Rosopovich).

The First Concerto with Abbado and the LSO is a classic, and DG reproduce the oignal covers, including the small tulip header. It stands as a complement Pollini/Klezki on HMV/EMI, more fiery, more overtly impassioned, and more interior in the slow movement. Here's a YouTube playlist of the original release, which coupled that Chopin with Liszt First Concerto. The recording shows its age a bit in the finale, but here's the first movement:

This disc (the third) includes one of those two performances of the Chopin Cello Sonata, Op.65 in the set, this one prefaced by a performance of the Introduction & Polonaise brillante in C, Op. 3. But Argerich needs a soloist who can match her character, and here the ear is consantly led to her rather than her duo partner Mischa Maisky.

The Second Concerto is with the NSO of Washington and Rostropovich, and the disc is completed by the same two cello pieces (Opp. 3 and 65). I was lucky enough to see the Washngton orchestra on tour at the Festival Hall, when Argerich played the Pavel G-Major with Rostropovich cnducting. That rapport is here, too, particularly in the first movement:

Listen.to the equivalence of spirit in the first movement of the Cello Sonata, too, between "Slava and Martha":

It is so hard to pinpoint one single disc as Argerich's finest, but I would nominate the Op. 28 Préludes for sure. Its all here: the abandon, the fire of the first, the desolation of the A-Minor (the second), the stunning technique of the left-hand in the G-Major, the poetry of the fourth, resulting in a tension that accumulates over all 24. Here's the glorious abandon of the G-Major:

The sense of glorious variagation characterises this st, crowned by a stunning C Sharp-Minor, Op. 45. She even includes the A flat, Op. posth, skittish ad lovely.

Less famous is Argeirch's way with the Mazurkas. Here's Op. 59/1, but from he Chopin Competition in 1965:

Both remaining discs are solo piano recitals, with an overlap of the Third Sonata. Argerich is as impressive in the lager forms as she is in the smaller. There is an intrinsic rightness to he playing, never better exemplified than by the first movement of the Second Sonata (which includes the exposition repeat):

Two Scheczos (Nos. 2 & 3) and the Barcarolle complete the disc. If the actual piano recording in the B flat-minor seems.touch shallow, Argerich's playing is anything but. Interestingly, she opens the Barcarolle as if embarking o a large-scale Ballade or Scherzo, before melting into its lyricism. And there are double trills any pianist would die for

The remaining disc was originally simply called, Argerich plays Chopin. It opens with a trascendental First Ballade, in which she evokes the spirit of the dance in the 6/4 secions: a precise o a string-of-pearls sequence of 9 Mazurkas, separated by a bejewelled Etude, Op. 10/4 and holding three magnificent Nocturnes:

The disc closes with a live recording fom 1967 of the Third Sonata boasting a Scherzo of incendiary passion. But is Argerich's way with the slow movment that is so fine, daringly introspective. The finale is daringly fast, articulation bejewelled, sometimes stormy: I just miss, here, a sense of glowering cumulative energy

A fine reminder of Argerich's genius, available at Amazon here.