This wonderful disc provides the perfect pick-me-up for anyone still recovering from Yevgeny Kissin's assault on the five Beethoven concertos in London last month. Recorded in concerts in Ferrara, Italy in 2000 (the Second Concerto) and in February this year (No 3), these performances are the stuff of great piano playing; Martha Argerich is in wonderfully insightful mood in both works while the accompaniments from Abbado and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra have the intimacy and quick responses of chamber music.
Argerich has never before recorded the Third, and the depths and colours she reveals in its slow movement are extraordinary, while the outer movements of both works dance with irrepressible energy; the frisson of a live performance is obvious in every bar.
