A pianist at her best

By WILLIAM DART

Argentinian pianist Martha Argerich inspires the sort of adulation usually reserved for operatic divas, fuelled as much by her frequent cancellations as her explosive onstage personality. The sagas are legion of utter desperation as fans clamoured over returned tickets at her 2000 Carnegie Hall recital.

Deutsche Grammophon's The Artistry of Martha Argerich is generous. For the price of a single album, you receive a full 150 minutes of music, and a feeling for the range of her interpretations.

The collection begins and ends on the fiery side - ebullient borders on brutal in the opening Bach "Capriccio" and the last offering is the Finale from the Rachmaninov Third Concerto, the celebrated 1982 live recording with Riccardo Chailly which ends with a blitzkrieg of raw emotion and a storm of applause.

There is much to applaud on Artistry, including a demonic Prokofiev Toccata and a Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody with octave work that threatens to melt the keys, some classy dalliances on the light side (duetting with Nicolas Economou in Tchaikovsky's Waltz of the Flowers) and a nod to the contemporary with Lutoslawski's Paganini Variations, one of a number of memorable tracks with Nelson Freire.

It is nice also to be reminded of the grace and mystery she brought to Ravel's "Ondine" in 1975, after her crude version in an Amsterdam concert a few years later, although aficionados might exchange this particular Finale from the Tchaikovsky First Concerto (with Dutoit in 1970) for her spectacular live recording with Kondrashin 10 years later.

What could have been a handsome tribute is an assortment of bits and pieces. There are jarring moments - Saint-Saens' swan seems weirdly calm, cool and collected in the wake of the Prokofiev, and the brightness of a 1986 Beethoven recording jolts after the warm ambience in which Tchaikovsky's flowers are pirouetting.

Andras Schiff's new ECM recording, a 1999 recital at Tonhalle Zurich, is also a double set. No patched-together job this, it's an all-Schumann programme, carefully conceptualised by the pianist with a searching programme booklet essay from Martin Meyer.

Surrender then, and be guided from the almost seamless fantasy world of the Humoreske through the eight adventures of the Novelletten to the monumental drama of the great F minor Sonata.

Schiff is a master of the subtle. He can be the soul of capriciousness, yet achieve revelations through immaculate voicing. A dream-laden "Nightpiece" is the perfect encore, although far from retiring for the evening, one is sorely tempted to start the concert over again.

* The Artistry of Martha Argerich (Deutsche Grammophon 461 858-2); Andras Schiff in Concert (ECM New Series 1806/07)