Even after playing it in concert together the previous summer, Argerich, Kremer, Bashmet, and Maisky still spent five days in Berlin recording Brahms' Piano Quartet in G minor. They spent a Saturday in late February 2003 tuning up and the next four days recording, one day for each movement. On top of that, they practiced every morning back in their hotels. And this is Martha Argerich, Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet, and Mischa Maisky here: not only arguably the four greatest living virtuosos on their instruments, but friends who've been playing chamber music together for decades. How could they have spent six hours recording the opening Allegro?
How could they have spent any less? Considering that Argerich, Kremer, Bashmet, and Maisky are also four of the most highly individualistic and idiosyncratic performers in the history of classical music, they probably took five-and-three-quarter hours just working the kinks out. But the results are absolutely worth it: despite all their arduous work, Argerich, Kremer, Bashmet, and Maisky play with unrelenting recklessness, taking musical, dramatic, and -- most of all -- emotional chances few other performers would dare take. Rhythms, tempos, dynamics, phrasing, form, and every note are all infused with their individual and collective technical and interpretive virtuosity. While their performance may be too exciting to listen to every day, it is nevertheless one of the two or three greatest performances of Brahms' Piano Quartet in G minor ever recorded. Deutsche Grammophon's sound is right there in the room with you.
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