Donald Satz wrote: >As he leaves it at the moment, John has talked up Ashkenazy and >Fleisher but provides no insight or information as to what makes >them great performances or in what ways they are as good or better >than comparative versions. Does he consider them superior to Richter, >Tverskaya, Kempff, Damgaard, Planes, Brendel, etc.? Why? Maybe he will >give us his analysis, and we can certainly benefit from additional >informed opinions. Far be it for me, as Don suggests, to convey a comparative analysis to this list without first having listened seriously to all of the above, plus a half dozen other versions Don did not include in his survey: Hess, Schiff, Arrau, Klein, Jando, Bilson. Although the old Hess was my "imprint," and I have listened at least once to the Richter, the Schiff and the Arrau, I do not pretend to be a music critic. To borrow a page from Don's book, the Ashkenazy and the Fleisher are simply the only versions in my "library," and with these two I hear valid and expressive statements of the music. John Dalmas [log in to unmask]