Argerich never produces recordings that are anything less than excellent, but even by her atmospheric standards this recording is unbelievably good. The playing is mercurial and fiery - but there’s also a real sense of integrity to it, and in the middle movement the pianism reaches a trancelike level of concentration. It’s a very Argerich thing, actually, to play in a manner that sounds completely spontaneous while also having every musical decision also make total sense - consider how carefully she varies her trills, for instance: 5:41 (quiet, even), 8:30 (percussive), 14:27 (from forceful to wafer-thin pianissimo), and 26:59 (mechanical, rigid, even a bit frightening).
In the first movement, you’ve got the granite-hewn hardness of the piano’s entry put in violent contrast against the expressiveness of the rising chords at 3:28. And immediately after, the melodic lines at 3:37 and 4:17 are presented improvisationally, with dozens of dynamic dips/rises and microscopic changes in tempo. Even a simple thing like the falling arpeggio at 4:07 is given a steely brilliance that lifts it a notch above what you usually hear.
The second movement is taken at a really slow tempo, but this works wonders - the ending of the movement seems to stretch to musical infinity, and 20:09 becomes into a moving meditation between piano and winds. And I’ve not heard a better handling of the LH tremolo at 17:17, which here dissolves into a translucent haze of sound.
The last movement is taut and combative, filled with jabbing accent, and some surprisingly coy moments (e.g., 28:14, where Argerich plays the alternating high and low phrases very differently: the first rhythmically tight and detached, the second drowsily legato and noticeably slower, with a hair’s-breadth pause between the two). My favourite modulation in all the Beethoven concertos is also handled brilliantly here: the piano cuts off the orchestra mid-sentence at 31:17 by coming in very loud, and with these arrogant agogic accents. And needless to say, the coda is taken at a blistering, reckless speed: 34:24.