In August 2014 Martha Argerich and Daniel Barenboim came together at the Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires, for their first-ever joint concerts in their native city. EuroArts has already released a DVD of two of those events (7/16); this CD is a souvenir of another joint recital in the same series. It was clearly a memorable occasion – the silence at the end of Bartók’s Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion and the avalanche of cheers and applause that follows leave no doubt of that.

And generally, the disc captures the live atmosphere well, even if the balance in Schumann’s Six Canonic Studies and Debussy’s En blanc et noir is skewed in favour of the upper register. It would be nice to know who was playing which part. Much of the pleasure of the DVD came from watching a smiling Argerich (on second) tease at the parameters laid down by a saturnine Barenboim (on first), and I suspect it was the same here: that the bass-line wryly stalking the melody through the fourth Schumann study was Argerich and that the ringing, neon-lit fanfare that momentarily halts the first of Debussy’s pieces was Barenboim. In any case, these are fresh, colourful readings; the Debussy is particularly vivid.

The Bartók, unfortunately, is a disappointment: not because of the pianists – who evoke The Rite in the central nocturne and build thunderous rolling climaxes through the first movement – but on account of the apologetic, distant-sounding percussion. More than anything, that makes this a disc for hardcore fans only. And judging from the booklet, which contains a gushing hagiography but no information about any of the music performed, that was always the intention.