Live from the Lugano Festivals 2005;

Since Martha Argerich has abandoned solo recitals and studio recordings, her new CDs feature concert collaborations with like-minded friends and protégés. Whatever the negatives of such live recordings may be, the upside trumps them handily since, if we're lucky, some of the sparks generated by musicians in a concert venue will be captured. With this set drawn from the 2005 Lugano Festival we're decidedly lucky, for musical electricity courses through all three discs. There are nine works by eight composers ranging from Mendelssohn to Guastavino, all played with spontaneity and full-blooded Romanticism. Argerich is onstage for five of them, including such rarities as Brahms' two-piano version of his Variations on a theme of Haydn, where she's partnered by Polina Leschenko, and, with Piotr Anderszewski, Grieg's full-dress arrangement for two pianos of Mozart's Piano Sonata No. 16, an oddity whose curiosity value outweighs the sacrilege. There's also the sensuous Argentine and Andalucian encores and the teenage Beethoven's Piano Quartet set alongside masterpieces such as the Brahms Piano Quintet, Op. 34 and Mendelssohn's Piano Trio No.2, both played with a captivating blend of sensitivity and fervor. For many the highlight will be two big Rachmaninoff works on Disc Two – Mischa Maisky's big-toned cello in the master's G minor Cello Sonata, whose episodic qualities the soloist turns into virtues, and the Suite No. 2 for two pianos, passionately played by Argerich and Gabriela Montero. Get this, put it in your player, and be transported to Festival-level performances by established masters and a new generation of stars. --Dan Davis