The prime interest here is Brahms's Op. 34, originally conceived as a string quintet, finally blossoming into the masterly F minor Piano Quintet, but in between transformed into a sonata for two pianos. Few luminaries have ever had much time for this middle version in the CD catalogue. So hats off to Martha Argerich and her Russian composer-pianist partner, Alexandre Rabinovitch, for taking up the challenge anew.
Their highly charged reading at once reminded me of Clara Schumann's description of this music as ''not a sonata, but a work whose ideas you might—and must—scatter, as from a horn of plenty, over an entire orchestra''. Though not enamoured of the metallic edge that so often brightens the forward Teldec recording, I was constantly impressed by the volume (for the most part without undue thickening) and variety of sonority they extract from their two pianos. Mood contrasts are pushed to their ne plus ultra, some listeners might think excessively, to maintain a truly Brahmsian equilibrium. But whatever the context, no detail of constructional ingenuity is allowed to go unheeded in inner and under parts. Moments to treasure are the lilting lullaby of the slow movement and the succulently sung trio of the Scherzo.
As for the Haydn Variations, my first reactions were decidedly Beckmesserish—faster numbers disproportionately fast, slower numbers sentimentalized with rubato, accentuation often aggressive and initially even moments of imperfectly timed ensemble. Discarding my score I listened again and began to wonder if even Brahms himself might have relished such devil-may-care 'new light', not least in the fancifully kaleidoscopic colouring they bring to his changing textures. At a well-wined party he might have enjoyed their joie de vivre and seduction in the waltzes even more. But it's not a disc for the straitlaced.