Martha Argerich • The Successful Beginning
 he full name of the label issuing this CD set is Profil Edition
Günter Hänssler. Hänssler founded the German label in 2004, and its focus is to reissue
repertoire of great conductors and performers. This set includes four discs of Martha
Argerich's performances recorded between 1955 and 1961, the early stage of her career. At
the time of these recordings, Argerich was fast on her ascent to becoming one of the
finest, and most popular, piano players of all time. Born in 1941, Argerich reached
international fame when she won the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in
1965. Her first studio recording, for Deutsche Grammophon (DGG), was made in 1960 and
released in 1961.
These CDs include repertoire that Argerich recorded many times in her career, but several pieces are from composers she rarely revisited later in life. Her performances range from powerful and expansive to elegant. In some passages, her youth is on display, but never in a flashy way. At least some of the recordings presented in The Successful Beginning were made for West German Radio (WDR) and North German Radio (NDR). Others were recorded in St. Petersburg, Geneva and Buenos Aires. Unfortunately, the skimpy seven-page booklet provides the recording year but no specific dates or recording details. Sound quality varies from excellent (especially in those pieces released by DGG) to average for a live recording. DGG released some of these recordings as part of a two-CD set, Early Recordings, in 2016. The duplicated recordings include Mozart’s Piano Sonata No.18 in D Major, Prokofiev’s Toccata Op.11 and Sonata No. 3 in A Minor, Ravel’s Gaspard De La Nuit and Sonatine, and Beethoven’s Sonata No. 7 in D Major. The DGG set includes only one piece (Prokofiev’s Sonata No.7 in B flat Major, op.83) not included here. Where the DGG set is limited to solo performances, this Profil set includes some orchestral works, including Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major and Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major, along with several Bartók and Pablo de Sarasate pieces for violin and piano.The DGG two-disc set has a much more generous booklet with details of the recordings, but I could detect no sonic difference between the two sets. Any serious collector of piano music will want some version of Argerich’s youthful recordings. For $19 and change you can have the two-CD set from DGG or spend $4 more to get these four CDs. DGG offers more elegant packaging, but Profil doubles the amount of music. There’s also a third choice: DGG offers its set on vinyl for about $25. I heard Argerich perform earlier this year, and, at the
age of 77, she gave a remarkable performance. Afterwards, she was standing offstage during
the all-orchestral second half of the program, and I passed within a few feet of her,
tongue-tied and my heart aflutter. There’s no real substitute for making eye contact
with Martha Argerich, but I wouldn’t want to be without this set or (really) any of
the treasure trove of recordings she has released. This is a pretty good second choice to
that once-in-a-lifetime near encounter, and at less than $23, it's a no-brainer. |
