Lugano Festival of Chamber Music 2006

"These annual live sets from the Lugano Festival are one of the delights of the year."
Anthony Holden, Observer

"4 stars(...) the performances have a fresh-minted quality. There's extreordinary piano playing from Gabriela Montero with cellist Gautier Capuçon in Mendelssohn's D major Cello Sonata, and a thoughtful account of Schumann's D minor Piano Trio from Nicholas Andelich joining the Capuçons."
Andrew Clements, The Guardian

"4 stars. Argerich's annual Lugano concerts mix the unusual and the familiar."
Geoff Brown, The Times

No other pianist in the musical world nurtures and promotes emerging talent with the same level of personal commitment and belief as Martha Argerich. The results of the chamber music partnerships displayed on this release demonstrate the magic which is made when these professional friends get together. Not to be missed.

This 3CD set welcomes back many familiar names from the three previous Live from the Lugano Festival releases including EMI Classics-signed pianists Gabriela Montero and Sergio Tiempo and Virgin Classics' inimitable violin- and cello-soloist brothers, Renaud and Gautier Capuçon.

The high quality of the performances on offer on these collections is clear. For the last two years Argerich's "Live from the Lugano Festival" collections have been nominated for Grammy Awards - most recently for Best Classical Album and Best Chamber Music Performance in the 2007 awards.

The musical landscape is broad in this year's collection. Alongside works by classic miniaturists Mendelssohn and Schumann sit nocturnes by the 20th-century master of the mood Debussy, in arrangements for two pianos, and works by contrasting Russian composers Sergei Taneyev (1856-1915) and Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998).

Martha Argerich and Friends return once more to Lugano this June for the sixth Martha Argerich Project at the Lugano Festival