Rick Mabry:

>To bleed into yet another old thread, I can enjoy, on the other hand,
>a performance on video even if the sound is awful.  My favorite version
>of Prokofiev's second sonata, for instance, is one by a relatively young
>Sviatoslav Richter.  I'm not sure if I would have liked this version as
>much if it had not been for the video, which helped make me aware of the
>great emotion of the playing.  Now I compare all audio versions to this
>one.  Sometimes seeing is indeed the quicker route to believing, even
>with music.

This reminds me of the story of Arthur Rubinstein's advice on stage
deportment to Vladimir Horowitz (a model of decorum, by the way): "When
the music gets difficult, make faces."

Steve Schwartz