Martha Argerich and Friends: Live from the Lugano Festival

Sergey Prokofiev (Composer), Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky (Composer), Dmitry Shostakovich (Composer), Johannes Brahms (Composer), Franz [Vienna] Schubert (Composer), Robert Schumann (Composer), Antonin Dvorak (Composer), Martha Argerich (Performer), Yefim Bronfman (Performer), Lilya Zilberstein (Performer), Walter Delahunt (Performer), Mirabela Dina (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Martha Argerich, Yefim Bronfman, Lilya Zilberstein, Walter Delahunt, Mirabela Dina
• Composer: Sergey Prokofiev, Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky, Dmitry Shostakovich, Johannes Brahms, Franz [Vienna] Schubert, et al.
• Audio CD (September 13, 2005)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 3
• Label: EMI Classics
• ASIN: B0009LNQV0
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #233,923 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Highly engaging summer music--the real spark is Argerich, January 5, 2006

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Santa Fe Listener (Santa Fe, NM USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Martha Argerich and Friends: Live from the Lugano Festival (Audio CD)

This bargain 3-CD set is called "Martha Argerich and Friends," but is that enough to warn buyers that she apears only half the time? That half is the best part of this colleciton, taped live across three summers, 2002-04 in Lugano, Switz. The half without Ms. Argerich features other stellar musicians, particularly Maxim Vengerov and Yefim Bronfman, but theyir participation is surprisingly low-key.

Argerich loves to play two-piano music, a genre I find too bangy to be interesting much of the time. She zips through a piano transcription of Prokofive's Sym. 1 with Yefim Brongman, and sparkles in a similar arrangement of the Nutcracker Suite with a parnter unknown to me, Mirabela Dina. I'm sure a lot of listeners will have as much fun with fluff as she does.

Her two major contributions come in a riveting Shostakovich Pianto Trio #2, one of his undoubted masterpieces, with Vengerov almost dominatig the ensemble in his mesmerizing account of the violin part. This reading isn't as fiery as Argerich is wont to be, but it has passion enough ot stand beside the best performances (the composer's own and the one with Richter and the Borodin Trio). The second-best thing here is the Schumann Piano Quintet, again finding Argerich in vigorous but not slashing mode (Gott sei dank), easily taking charge and making this a quintet for piano solo with string obligatto. A fine account despite the imbalance.

The half without Argerich is pleasantly done. I had hoped for much more form Vengerov and Bronfman in the Brahms Violin Sonata #3--maybe the warm July breeze off the lake made them a bit drowsy. A Schubert Piano Trio #1 again finds Bronfman in too relaxed mode; the piece lacks spine and attack. The rest of these three CDs is filled out with Argerich accompanying Geza Hosszu-Lagocky (a fine violinist unknown to me) in Schumann's late, rather debilitated Violin Sonata #1, a lovely account without quirks, and a pleasant but hardly memorable Dvorak Piano Quartet #2 led by Walter Delaunt.

All in all, a bargains et of very good performanes that sometimes rises higher than that.