Also, Grieg: Holberg Suite; Mozart: Divertimento in D
major. Martha Argerich, piano; Seiji Ozawa, Mito Chamber Orchestra. Decca 485
0592.
By John J. Puccio
You’ve got a world-class pianist, Martha Argerich. You’ve
got a world-class conductor, Seiji Ozawa. You’ve got world-class music,
Beethoven’s Second Piano Concerto. And you probably have a world-class
ensemble, the Mito Chamber Orchestra, although I wasn’t familiar with them.
Whatever, it adds up to a world-class performance.
Beethoven wrote his Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat
major between 1787 and 1789, and then revised it before its publication in
1801. Beethoven was the soloist at the concerto’s première in 1895, his debut
performance, and he hoped both the concerto and the performance would help him
make a name for himself. Beethoven would later say that he didn’t consider the First
or Second Piano Concertos among his best work, and they do owe a lot to
the earlier classical styles of Haydn and Mozart. Still, they have a buoyant
charm that audiences find hard to resist, especially the Second Concerto’s
playful finale.
I’m happy to say that throughout this album neither Ms.
Argerich nor Maestro Ozawa seems to have lost any of their youthful spark. Even
though tempos are unhurried, they are never sluggish. Far from it, at moderate
speeds their playing is vibrant and joyful. The central Adagio is
appropriately serene, contemplative, and hushed, with both the soloist and the
orchestra playing most sensitively. In the lighthearted final movement, Ms.
Argerich could be twenty again. She hasn’t lost a beat. None of this slowing
down with maturity business for her. It’s a delightfully lively rendition of
the music.
 |
| Martha Argerich |
The second work on the program is the brief Allegro
movement from Mozart’s Divertimento in D major (1772). Mozart wrote it
for string quartet but later transcribed it for string orchestra, which we have
here. A booklet note tells us that the recording was a surprise musical gift to
Ms. Argerich “when she was bestowed the Order of the Rising Sun by the Emperor
of Japan at a concert in Beppu in May 2017.” Ozawa affords it a lithe,
comfortable, and affecting reading.
The program concludes with the Holberg Suite by
Danish-Norwegian composer and pianist Edvard Grieg; it’s music he wrote in 1884
to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the birth of the playwright Ludvig
Holberg. Grieg’s official title for the piece is actually the rather cumbersome
From Holberg’s Time: Suite in the Olden Style, which isn’t exactly
catchy. It’s a series of movements that Grieg originally wrote for piano but
later adapted for string orchestra, which Ozawa and company play. In the work’s
five movements, an introduction and four dances, Grieg tried his best to
represent the music of Holberg’s era some 150 years earlier. Even if the result
is not exactly a Peer Gynt suite, it has its moments, reminding one of a
kind of a nineteenth-century Romanticized take on early eighteenth-century
music. Ozawa and his players approach it with dignity and refinement, giving
the final movement a jolly good turn.
Producer Dominic Fyfe and engineer Jonathan Stokes
recorded the music at Art Tower Mito, Mito City Ibaraki, Japan in May 2017 and
May 2019. The sound in the Beethoven is classic Decca: clear and well defined,
a touch metallic, dynamic, a little close, and somewhat flat. For a comparison,
I put on Stephan Kovacivich’s 1974 recording for Philips and found it warmer,
better imaged, and more dimensional. Nevertheless, anyone who has listened to
and enjoyed Decca recordings over the years will find this one pretty much in
the ballpark. The two orchestral pieces--Mozart and Grieg--sounded more natural
to me, rounder and sweeter, with only a few instances of hardness or
brightness.
JJP
To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click below:
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