Martha Argerich purports to avoid the soloist’s limelight in order to focus on the collaborative give and take of concerto playing and chamber music partnerships. Yet being the force of nature and individual artist she is, Argerich usually winds up dominating her colleagues in spite of herself. In the case of Beethoven’s Triple Concerto, where the piano part is relatively easy compared to the violin and cello parts’ challenges, Argerich turns out to be an exemplary team player. She constantly adjusts her sound and her phrasing to accommodate the supple runs and quicksilver dynamic shifts Renaud Capuçon and Mischa Maisky pull out of their interpretive magic hats. The outer movements benefit from Rabinovitch-Barakovsky’s fleet basic tempos, which prove ideal for the soloists’ playful vigor. Needless to say, their level of finesse and imagination leave EMI’s recent Eroica Trio Triple Concerto effort in the dust, although the recorded balance favors Argerich and friends to the point where they dominate the orchestra tuttis.
In the Schumann Concerto’s first two movements Argerich toys with the music, speeding up and slowing down phrases to the point where the large paragraphs lose their forward impetus. For his part, Rabinovitch-Barakovsky basically steps aside and lets the pianist run the show. As a result, the Intermezzo’s soloist/orchestra dialogue emerges less as a conversation than a tug of war, with the big, lyrical C major theme distended into flab. However, both conductor and pianist pursue a steady course with a rapid, light-fingered Finale, although the orchestra is hard pressed to maintain absolute precision at such an optimistic pace. In sum, Argerich’s 1979 DG recording with Rostropovich and the National Symphony remains the cleanest and most straightforward of her three commercially released Schumann Concertos. Mainly recommended for the Beethoven.
