After 'one memorable day of rehearsal', as the introductory note puts it, Martha Argerich and a group of friends recorded this programme at a public concert in Holland 'with the enthusiasm and intimate inspiration of a house-party'. The rarity is the Andante and Variations, Op 46, here brought up with all the spontaneous freshness of new discovery in a performance as enjoyable for its self-generating continuity as its diversity.
Argerich and her fellow pianist, Rabinovitch divide keyboard responsibilities in the remainder of the programme. Her own major triumph comes in the Quintet (with truly inspirational help from Maisky's cello). Every note tingles with life and colour in an arrestingly imaginative reading of exemplary textural transparency. In none of the more familiar works in the concert is that little extra stimulus of live as opposed to studio recording combined with more finesse and finish than here.
In the smaller pieces Argerich reaffirms herself as an artist of 'temperament', much given to the impulse of the moment. The recording itself is pleasingly natural. And there's heartening audience applause as a further reminder that we're at a live performance.

a compelling live recording of vital, vivacious music-making...Argerich has rarely sounded more radiant and less fraught, inspiring her partners to an ultimate eloquence and vivacity...everything is so vital and concentrated that it sounds new-minted, recreated as it were in the first flush of inspiration.