Most electrifying Prokofiev 3 video ever! It was shot (not by me) in Carnegie Hall on October 25th, 1997 and Martha had also played the Prokofiev 1st concerto at the same concert, before the interval (hence the triumph before she even starts playing).
Below the New York Times review :
MUSIC REVIEW
MUSIC REVIEW; A Virtuoso For Whom Perfection Is the Rule
By Bernard Holland
Oct. 28, 1997
A good rule of thumb for music lovers is that concerts ought to be about music first and performers second. Martha Argerich, who played three concertos at two events with the Montreal Symphony over the weekend at Carnegie Hall, clouds this otherwise straightforward thought. She, in other words, is a pianist who brings along a free-standing musicality of her own regardless of the repertory; the ferociousness of her technique and its stupefying accuracy become legitimate attractions in and of themselves.
With rock-star magnetism like this in place, Saturday's performances of the First and Third Prokofiev Concertos elicited a near-endless barrage of applause and curtain calls. On Sunday afternoon, Ms. Argerich finally had to repeat the finale of the Ravel G Major Concerto just before intermission. If the Montreal's conductor, Charles Dutoit, had not ushered his players off the stage, the applause might still be going on.
Mr. Dutoit balanced the personal hoopla with a pair of sober beauties, though I wonder how many in attendance really noticed either piece. Saturday's concert began with Frank Martin's ''Petite Symphonie Concertante,'' in which long, ardent lyrical lines are cleansed of self-indulgence and rhetorical gesture.
Like the Stravinsky ''Ode'' on Sunday, Martin's composition -- with its double orchestra and prominent harpsichord, piano and harp -- is about the dignity of the musical art rather than any power to inflame the passions of listeners. The second of Stravinsky's three brief movements is taken from a failed film score project. All three sections shine with a quietness and light. The ''Ode'' ends as unobtrusively as it begins. Out of place as it was next to the charming faux-Americanisms of the Ravel concerto and the thunderous hokum of ''The Planets'' by Holst, it reminded us in a modest way that music is about more than audience titillation.
Ms. Argerich is, of course, a wonder. The Prokofiev concertos especially bent themselves to her capacity for virtuosity and personal projection, although the opening of the Third came very close to being victimized by all the feral energy. I have no doubt that Ms. Argerich played every whirling note perfectly, but the music went by at such a rate I am afraid I shall never know.
Much the same thing happened in the outer movements of the Ravel, in which the spectacular nature of the rendering tended to eclipse the nature of that being rendered. The finale indeed must race, but on Sunday one had visions of new speed records being set on Utah salt flats rather than skittering good cheer. On purely musical terms, the Prokofiev First sounded the best. At both concerts Ms. Argerich was as magnetic as ever. I think, on the other hand, that she is a more serious musician than these performances indicated.
Saturday's concert ended with Ravel's ''Bolero,'' sounding more raucously effective than refined. ''The Planets'' on Sunday huffed and puffed as it lumbered through its loud and melodramatic universe. Mark Kroll, Jennifer Swartz and Rolf Bertsch played the harpsichord, the harp and the piano, respectively, in the Martin piece. In the ''Neptune'' movement of the Holst, the offstage sopranos of the Concert Chorale of New York threw out their vague, almost too vague, offerings.
5 окт 2024
