Contrapunctus

Jean-Philippe Rameau: Concert nº6: “L’Egiptienne”, from 6 Concerts Transcrits en Sextuor. Les Talens Lyriques. Christophe Rousset.

If epicureanism exists….

Fauré, Élégie for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 24

Walter Susskind, Philharmonia Orchestra 

Janos Starker, cello

*

Santa Filomena, 1840, Collocazione Cattedrale, Pistoia

Woman Reading in an Interior. Oil on canvas.

Since 2002 Martha Argerich’s Progetto at the Lugano Festival has brought together many notable artists for memorable concerts of chamber and orchestral music. This 4-CD set offers a rich selection of live concerto recordings, all with Martha Argerich and all first-time releases. They include a number of works new to her Deutsche Grammophon discography (Mozart, Prokofiev, Bartók and Poulenc) in addition to scintillating performances of Schubert, Brahms and Milhaud – all CD premieres of pieces absolutely new to her repertoire.

It’s a mixture of the familiar and the new; but even the familiar gets an extra frisson through the tension and edge of live performance atmosphere. The Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana is Ms. Argerich’s excellent partner under a variety of conductors including Charles Dutoit, Ion Marin and Alexandre Rabinovitch; piano colleagues such as Rico and Paul Gulda (Mozart Triple Concerto) also join her on stage, while Karin Merle takes the seat at the second piano in this performance of Darius Milhaud’s delightful Suite, Scaramouche. The performance took place in Auditorio Stelio Molo, Lugano, on 15th June 2004.

Edgar Degas, Two Riders by a Lake, 1861

Titian and his workshop made at least seven versions of this painting.

This version is the only composition that shows the Magdalene’s Bible resting on a cloth-covered support rather than the usual skull.