Recorded as part of EMI’s Martha Argerich Project at the 2002 Lugano Festival, these impulsive performances may not enjoy Argerich’s participation, but she surely would feel at home with the approach. In the Franck Sonata Renaud Capuçon and Alexandre Gurning offer some very fluid phrasing and spontaneous speed changes, particularly in the outer movements, but they keep it together nevertheless and really “play off” each other in virtuoso fashion. Only the rather glaring recording of the violin provides a degree of harshness that the performances probably never intended–but this isn’t a problem with the equally fine coupling.
As so often happens these days, several new recordings of Rachmaninov’s sprawling sonata have appeared lately, all of the them quite good–but this one is really excellent. Pianist Lilya Zilberstein plows into the piano part with aplomb, providing an almost symphonic foundation over which Gautier Capuçon projects Rachmaninov’s moody thematic discourse. For all of the busy textures in the long opening movement, the balances never obscure important detail, and the brief third-movement andante emerges with unusually beguiling sweetness before a singularly gutsy account of the finale that (for once) never sounds too long. This must have been dynamite to hear in person, and even at one remove from the actual event, it’s awfully impressive. In short, this is a disc in which chamber music lovers will find plenty to attract their admiring attention.
