Martha Argerich, Daniel Barenboim, Piano Duos (Deutsche Grammophon)Yes, there are a few spare moments remaining in between my devotions to the music from, say, 1720 to 1740, when I venture outside of that comfort zone and, of course, listen to Monteverdi, Buxtehude or even Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven. It makes me shudder sometimes at such unwary boldness but one has to give it a go from time to time.
Mozart was my first love and, to misquote the worst pop record of all time, will be among my last. It was an LP of Daniel Barenboim playing two concertos that I spent so much time on in those days. I would have loved to be the sort of person who could buy whatever DG recordings they wanted then. And now, a few decades later, I suppose I am. And let me say straight away, I'm very pleased to be. One can see such a thing as this reviewed and it is soon on its way here. If it had been like that from day one, I might not appreciate it so much now.
Proper afficiandos will have known, but I didn't, that Martha Argerich and Daniel Barenboim knew each other as children in Buenos Aires, first meeting in 1949. Not because they lived round the corner from each other but because their parents took them to the musical evenings held by Ernesto Rosenthal, 'a Viennese Jewish refugee businessman and amateur violinist'. And perhaps it is nearly time for me to stop merely copying out the notes from the booklet. Their careers haven't crossed paths as often as they might in the 60-odd years between then and now but, both now with reputations only just visible from the stratosphere, here is an occasion to put at least on a par with the Argerich recording with Claudio Abbado from earlier this year.
So, what would Mozart have made of the dexterity, expression and sheer bravura of the playing in the K.448. The only problem I have with it is the fact it is on CD here and not DVD. You can't see who is doing what. They play the Mozart on two pianos but then Martha plays the lower part on the Schubert D 813, and Barenboim says that she is a fine accompanist, as if Bobby Charlton or Denis Law could say that George Best was 'quite helpful' to play alongside. In both Mozart and Schubert it is a matter of gentleness and exuberant lyricism. There is no need to be torn between who is doing what or even who composed it, music is quite surprisingly more often a team effort than the product of one genius and the sum is more than the contributing parts.
The real 'clincher' to this partnership, however, was, it says, when Martha learnt the part for the piano duo arrangement that Stravinsky had made of Le Sacre du Printemps, 'The Rite of Spring'. I don't know what I was expecting from that. I have very long been more of a fan of Mussorgsky's piano original of Pictures at an Exhibition than Ravel's orchestration notwithstanding how great the Bournemouth's rendition of the full score was last year. And I also owe it to the BSO how much I enjoyed the Firebird, and I am sincerely not anti-Modernist in the way that Larkin stated his anathema to Pound, Parker and Picasso, not necessarily in that order. But, however much our teacher at school impressed on us the revolutionary energy of Stravinsky's time signatures, the primal energy and mould-breaking significance of The Rite, I'm afraid I'm old enough now to be able to admit that I don't, or no longer, get it. There are any number of great technical achievements going on, I'm sure, but, as with so much jazz, it is not much use to me if I'm not enjoying it. It will be the whole point of the disc to those who appreciate it and the Mozart and Schubert, for them, will have been perhaps no more than introductory exercises. There are marvellous moments in this performance but this is one bit of Stravinsky that, unfortunately, when Ton Koopman is just about to give the world his Opera Omnia of Dietrich Buxtehude, I'm not convinced I have enough time for and I know that is my fault.
I feel like Kenneth Williams or Julian Clary trapped in Pan's People's dressing room. I just don't know what it is I'm supposed to be appreciating.
It is still clearly tremendous, if you like that sort of thing, but the Mozart and Schubert are worth the price for me, as well as the historic duet partnership.
