Martha Argerich and Oscar Peterson

Toronto Symphony Orchestra

At Roy Thomson Hall

in Toronto on Friday

Like the butterfly whose wings stir the beginnings of a tornado, the making of a piano in Japan a century ago had a most unpredictable result in Toronto on Friday. Two elusive musicians from different ends of the art shared the same stage, in a concert party thrown by Yamaha to celebrate the 100th anniversary of its first grand piano.

It was really two shows in one, with Martha Argerich, conductor Andrew Davis and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra holding the floor for the first half, and Oscar Peterson and trio taking over for the second. The original idea had been for the orchestra to stay put for parts of Peterson's jazz-based Canadiana Suite, but his preferred conductor, Michel Legrand, was unavailable.

Argerich sightings are rare almost anywhere, but especially in Toronto, where she has not played since the late seventies. This Argentinian has been a star in every sense of the word since her teens (she's now 61), but she has never been comfortable taking centre stage in front of strangers, and much prefers the intimacy of chamber music to the grandstanding mode of most concertos.

When she does play a concerto, however, she goes the limit, as she showed in a titanic performance of Prokofiev's Concerto No. 3 in C major, Op. 26. This piece was written to amaze, by a composer-pianist who liked showing off. Argerich played as if its appalling technical challenges were really no big deal, which for her may be true in principle as well as in fact. If musicians can be divided into hunters and gatherers, Argerich is definitely a hunter, for whom the notes on the page are just the terrain you've got to scour to find the hidden quarry.

A good hunter keeps the whole field in view. Argerich played each passage as an intently observed incident within a spacious environment. Her mobility and focus were astounding. She could pepper a feather-light running passage with blunt accents that struck to earth without disturbing the pace a jot. She could let the tone grow languid in lyrical passages, and still maintain a watchful sense of where the hunt had yet to go.

But even Argerich couldn't conjure a more sympathetic partnership from Andrew Davis, whose soft-focus temperament has so little in common with hers. When she raced for the ramparts, he held back or pretended not to notice. The orchestra sounded only marginally more coherent than during the ragged opening performance of Wagner's Prelude, from Act I of Die Miestersinger von Nurnberg.

Peterson's set was both brave and sad. Like Argerich, he's someone who has been able to romp wherever he pleased over a keyboard. But damage from a stroke has rendered his once-awesome left hand of little use at the piano. His whole game is in the right hand now, and hearing him play was partly an exercise in filling in the blanks with memories of what Peterson in his prime might have done. There was more than a hint of frailty in the cascading, curlicued figures that used to ripple out so freely.

He still swings, and maybe on another night he would have done it more joyously. Late in the set he took a microphone and meditated on a long list of dead friends and colleagues, including Noreen Nimmons, a pianist who died of cancer the night before. Peterson dedicated to her memory a performance of Prelude (hopeful title!) that he wrote as an elegy for another lost comrade, the late John Lewis. It was the simplest and most beautiful thing Peterson played. A closing performance of Satin Doll attempted a jauntier pose, but felt more like grim defiance.

His trio backed him with maximum sympathy and skill. Guitarist Ulf Wakenius took several tight, blues-tinged solos, Niels-Henning Orsted Petersen showed how nimble and lyrical an upright jazz bass can be, and drummer Martin Drew gave a very delicate touch to the set's more reflective numbers.
The whole show was taped by CBC Television, which plans to air the results on an episode of Opening Night.