"Big names" are, in a small hand, reputation for a real merit; in a
big hand, an effort of Marketers to create great best-sellers to their
companies.  Some "big names" are just (or in a bigger part) artificial
bubbles, like - in my opinion - Z.  Metha, Pavaroti, F.  Ozawa, and others.
Some of these "big names" may be really good, instead "big names", like
Karajan, Horowitz or I.  Pogorelich.

I believe many of the "big names" are really better the their rivals,
but not with the same proportion that their fame.  That is:  the distance
between the "sizes of the names" is much bigger than the distance between
the abilities.  By the way, this distance is not a constant.  A "bad
player" can have a better performance, in one piece, than a great player
in a bad lucky day.

I have the Sonata K.  310(?) "Alla Turca" with the "big named" Glenn Gould,
and I don't think it is a good record, even I think he is a great pianist
with enough merit to be a "big name".  And I also have the Sonata op.  53
"Waldstein" of Beethoven with the "thin named" Dubravska Tomsic (I am not
sure the orthography), who has, in my opinion, it's best Third Movement of
this sonata that I ever heard - and I am comparing to Arrau, Kempff,
Horowitz and Brendel, with whom I have this sonata too.  It is truth that
in the others two movements he is not so great, as in the other two sonatas
I have with him:  the Pathetic and the Moonlight, that he plays just like
a good scholar.  Not enough to be a "big name", instead to have
"Waldstein"'s best Third Mov.  The First's best I think is Kempff's, and
the Second's Brendel's recording.  Among the ones I know, no one is the
best in the all three movements.  And Brendel, Arrau, Horowitz, Kempff
and Gould have enough merit to be "VERY BIG NAMES" and Tomsic doesn't.

Then...  I don't disagree with existing "big names" and about the Penguin
Guide, well, I many times agree with their opinions, and because I agree,
I trust them.  Sometimes I disagree, too, but when a critics insists on
"big names" is because there were - before him - too many "big reputations"
of other critics against which he can't fight.  There is the pression - the
deaf pression - of the big Companies, and the professional risk of the big
market - great part of his readers - do not like his new opinions.  It is
too dangerous for them to say - if they agree with me - "Glenn Gould's
Mozart's 'Alla Turca' is weak", or "Even having one of the best
Hammerklaviers, Brendel doesn't have a good op.  111".

The best things to do to correct distortions and unfair reputations are:
We continue to pay attention to our intuitions and to our feelings when
hearing music.  To give a chance - like said Kevin Sutton - for new and
anonymous players.  To hear new players without prejudice against them.
To hear "big names" without forgetting they are humans and may commit
mistakes, too.  To have no afraid of to be wrong, courage to make your own
opinion, and humilty to correct it, when wrong.  To know that, even having
each one your own taste, things are not so relative.

Some performances are, in fact, better than others but there is no way
to proof it, because rationality does not absorve cognitive references,
aestyhetical experiences or emotional memory, that are the natural tools to
judge the Art.  "But then, how to discover? Each one with your one opinion,
and no one can proof it?!" Endless search, yes, but that is the only way to
get a little closer to some - if exists - truth.

I never knew some one that had Salieri better than Mozart.  Beethoven's
early sonatas betters than the late ones.  How, even with so many different
opinions, some many people can have so much more equal opinions? How so
many and so different persons can have - almost a unanimity - Shakespeare
as the greatest writer ever? Rational conclusion? Of course not.  It's a
Human matter.  Reason is smaller than the Human, just a part of it.

Or you have cognitive ability to identify the better one or you have not.
Experience may help.  No one I can imagine is enough big or may have
cognitive energy to contain inside a so much rich subjectivity that can
identify so many secrets that the Art alone.  Find persons with same
opinions still is the only way to confirm our owns.  To give a chance to
others opinions is the best way to grow, to find in ourselves hills of
perception, memory and subjectivity where we never went.  So let's go to
the List!

Translated from the Portuguese to English (!!!):

   "I am the Man
   I suffered,
   I went there"

(Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass)

Best Regards,
Renato Vinicius