Though Martha Argerich first recorded the Shostakovich Concerto for piano and trumpet in 1993 (DG, 1/95), most fans probably know her performance from the Lugano Festival, recorded in June 2006, with trumpeter Sergei Nakariakov and the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana under Alexandre Vedernikov (EMI, 11/07). The Polish Fryderyk Chopin Institute has just released another version, recorded in Warsaw a scant two months later. Jakub Waszczeniuk is her co-soloist and her long-time collaborator Alexandre Rabinovitch-Barakovsky conducts. Both are live performance recordings.

For me, the new Chopin Institute recording has the edge, first and foremost for its luxuriously lifelike sound. Trumpeters in both the 2006 recordings are crack soloists but Waszczeniuk seems more playfully at home in the work. At the end, the audience goes wild. As a bonus, the Polish recording gives us the second go-round of the antic finale, offered as an encore, if possible even more dazzling and hilariously droll than the first. Finally, there’s the leadership of Rabinovitch, who conducts an orchestra more expertly than the vast majority of his composer colleagues. He deserves a share of the credit for this performance’s humour and infectious vibrancy.

And Argerich? Sixteen years ago, Alex Ross wrote that his well of superlatives applicable to the ‘Dark Lady of the Piano’ was running dry. By that time, mine had been sitting on empty for the better part of decade. It is said that Argerich was nearing 50 when she turned serious attention to Shostakovich. We must all be grateful that she did. I know of no other pianist who mines the First Concerto’s riches with her depth of understanding, yet delivers it with such consummate ease.

Those who might consider the idea of a ‘feel-good’ Shostakovich disc a contradiction in terms shouldn’t fail to continue listening to the Ninth Symphony. Rabinovitch and the Varsovians give a technically polished, richly detailed, multifaceted performance that reflects the white-hot intensity with which Shostakovich created the work in the summer of 1945.