EMI Classics is pleased to release the latest instalment of highlights from the Martha Argerich Project at the Lugano Festival. This is the ninth annual 3-CD set celebrating the musical fruits of a project in which young artists join seasoned performers, including Martha Argerich herself, to explore wide-ranging chamber music and orchestral repertoire, both well known and rarely heard.
The CDs, recorded in the summer of 2011, are being released in anticipation of the Festival’s 2012 season in June. As a chamber music event which celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2011, this series has become a laboratory that gives guest artists a chance to prove themselves not only in well-known masterpieces but also in rarely performed repertoire.
This is the second instalment released in slim-line clamshell packaging, which better represents the prestige of this release and makes it of suitable size for newspaper/magazine promotions.
As in previous years, the piano stands at the centre of the programming,
This 3CD set welcomes back mainly familiar names from the previous Live from the Lugano Festival releases including pianists Lilya Zilberstein, Sergio Tiempo and Polina Leschenko as well as Virgin Classics’ inimitable violin- and cello-soloist brothers, Renaud and Gautier Capuçon and violinists Lucia Hall and Lida Chen.
Few artists have nurtured and promoted emerging young musicians with the level of personal commitment shown by Martha Argerich. In the process, she has created inspired and inspirational chamber music partnerships mixing established and up-and-coming artists. A legend in her own lifetime for her technical mastery and passionate artistry, Argerich possesses an infectious spirit that has fired her own performances and partnerships as well as those of her colleagues and protégés.
Beethoven: Violin Sonata No. 8 in G major, Op. 30 No. 3
I Allegro assai
II Tempo di Minuetto, ma molto moderato e grazioso
III Allegro vivace
Mozart: Sonata for Piano duet in F major, K497
I. Adagio - Allegro molto
II. Andante
III. Allegro
Haydn: Piano Trio No. 43 in C Major, Hob.XV:27
I. Allegro
II. Andante
III. Finale: Presto
Schumann: Fantasiestücke, Op. 73
I. Zart und mit Ausdruck
II. Lebhaft, leicht
III. Rasch, mit Feuer
Liszt: Concerto pathétique in E minor for two pianos, S258
Allegro energico - Grandioso -
Quasi fantasia - Andante sostenuto - Allegro agitato assai -
Andante, quasi marcia funebre - Più mosso - Allegro trionfante
Rachmaninov: Trio Élégiaque No.2 in D monor Op.9
I. Moderato - Allegro vivace - Meno mosso - Allegro
II. Quasi variazione
III. Allegro risoluto - Allegro molto - Tempo rubato
Shostakovich: Moscow-Cheryomushki, Op. 105
I. Un giro attraverso Mosca
II. Valzer
III. Danze
IV. Balletto
Ravel: La Valse
La Valse
Ravel: Piano Concerto in G major
I. Allegramente
II. Adagio assai
III. Presto
Zarebski: Piano Quintet in G minor, Op. 34
I. Allegro
II. Adagio
III. Scherzo: Presto
IV. Finale
17th May 2012
“a sense of the musicians’ infectious enjoyment, even when their musicality is of the most serious kind, emanates from this entire programme. Argerich’s presence and ever-youthful spirit conspire to inspire performances of untold pleasure.”
3rd June 2012
“This 2011 instalment is exceptionally interesting, with rarities including the big-boned, folksy piano quintet by the Polish composer Juliusz Zarębski...The highlight is an absolutely titanic account of Liszt's flamboyant Concerto pathétique with Lilya Zilberstein: breathtaking.”
August 2012
***
“The Liszt Concerto pathetique...is the best thing on these discs, responding well to the typically wild, dramatic Martha Argerich treatment. Elsewhere in these recitals...she communicates to both audience and her fellow artists an abundance of energy that is, sadly, not always well directed.”
October 2012
“These may or may not be likely to become library choices for this repertoire but to invite comparisons is hardly the point: what is palpable in these Lugano CD grab-bags is the festival atmosphere and the intensity of chamber music-making at such a high level.”
Click on any of the works listed above for alternative recordings.
I Allegro assai
