OK, I'm back after a couple-three hours listening to the Hamelin 2-CD set.

My set-up:

I got the Idil Biret set of the unadorned Chopin etudes on Naxos.  I got
my score of the Op. 10 and Op. 25 etudes.  And I set up my CD changer to
play some of the originals and then the corresponding Godowsky reworkings
(as many as seven for a single etude, in the case of Op. 10, No. 5).

I thought it would be a lark to see how Godowsky changed things.  Kind of
a party trick.

But before I knew it I was swept away by the music (I've already commented
on how fabulous the playing is), not the virtuosity, the cleverness.  I had
honestly thought, before the Hamelin set, that the Godowsky pieces were
nice but not wonderful music.  Wrong!  There is some gorgeous, amazingly
meaty stuff here.  He didn't just add filigree.  He added contrapuntal
voices, inversions that work, rhythmic subtleties (not to say
complexities).

The party piece of all party pieces would be the one where he combines the
2 g flat major etudes (one from Op. 10, one from Op. 25).  Cute, clever,
admirable, jaw-dropping.  But again, he didn't just do something clever.
He wrote music!

This Godowsky needs to be looked into as a composer, I think.

Scott Morrison