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Argerich in Chopin's Ballade No. 3, Op. 47 in A-Flat Major

Someone recently put up a recording of Argerich playing this piece on YouTube, which I believe is the only one of its kind. Looking at Argerich's concert history, she seems to have played the A-Flat Ballade several times (always live), but I don't know which performance this is. Judging by the sound quality of this (putatively) pirate recording, I'd say this was performed in the 70s. I could be wrong, of course, but the 1970s is the uppermost possible bound. Which means that Argerich was in her prime. Excellent.

The sound quality is poor, because it was almost certainly recorded from the audience, and the tone of the piano is probably a bit harsher than it would have sounded to the people who were actually present. Nevertheless, the effortless poetry of Argerich's youth is clearly there, as well as the instinctive phrasing that I alluded to in one of my recent entries.

One of my favorite passages in this piece is the A-flat/E-flat interlude that occurs toward the end of the middle section (around the 3:32 mark in the video linked above). No two pianists (except, I suppose, bad ones) seem to play this passage in the same way, and there are many valid interpretations. Argerich is especially insouciant in this passage, tending slightly to Rachmaninoff's quirky exuberance (as opposed to Horowitz's more stately and dance-like reading), but with a more evanescent feeling. Sviatoslav Richter and Eileen Joyce are also amazing.

All in all, this is a great performance. Considerably better than Argerich's first Ballade, which has the unfair disadvantage of existing in two unflattering recordings (the first for being rather early in her career, and the second for being recorded by someone who thought it would be a good idea to place his microphone at the bottom of his backpack). The tempo is a bit fast (she plays in 6 minutes and 14 seconds what many play in upwards of 7 minutes), but it does not sound rushed, unlike her 1981 performance of the first Ballade and both performances of the third Scherzo from 2000.

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