CD: Beethoven: Triple Concerto; Schumann: Piano Concerto: Argerich/ Rabinovitch-Barakovsky, et al

This account of the Schumann Piano Concerto may not be as polished as Argerich's studio version, but Martha Argerich's vivid, characterful playing is irresistible.

Even more remarkably, she emerges as the obvious leader in Beethoven's Triple Concerto, though the piano part is the least demanding of the three, intended as it originally was for Beethoven's great patron, the Archduke Rudolf.

Not that the cellist Mischa Maisky is any less characterful, but Argerich's powerful presence seems to modify his customary wilfulness, so that even the great cello melody which opens the slow movement is the more moving for its restraint.