Some time back, I purchased this CD with great anticipation.  It has always
seemed to me that the technological change in piano tuning is at least as
important as other evolution in instruments, yet it seems to get less
attention--except among pedants, cranks and piano technicians as Steve
suggests.

Recently, I asked a concert pianist named Bonnie Anderson about this.
(Does this make me a pedant or a crank? I am certainly no piano tech!)
She was playing Brahms' Trio for piano, viola and vald horn and there
was discussion about the differences between the vald horn and the modern
valve horn.  She nodded with understanding and empathy for my question,
and then blithely answered that the modern piano is what it is and that
her job is to convey the emotions of the piece in modern vocabulary for
modern listeners.  (In my words not hers.) She made one other very
important point I think:  More than just the tunings are different between
our time and that of Beethoven or Bach.  For example, leaving aside
metronomes for the moment, take the concept of time.  What was considered
slow in the nineteenth century would be very different from what we
consider slow.  Or, to use a specifically musical example, if andante means
"walking," is this an alpine pace or a Manhattan pace?Basically, like Steve
she is saying that time has marched on (no pun intended) and pianists need
to get on with it and deal with the instrument they have.

I read Steve's review with anticipation almost the equal of that I felt
when I first put the disc on my CD player.  The "cold water" that Steve
dashed on the enterprise was disappointing to me only because I trust his
ear and judgment so much.  I will not challenge it.  However, I have one
question for Steve and others to consider.

He is fairly gushing (especially for Schwartzo) about the pianist on the
disc, one Enid Katahn, previously unknown to him, who he says plays at the
level of Schnabel or Serkin.  Coming from one as broad and incisive in his
listening and precise in his language as Steve Schwartz, this is indeed a
heavy duty statement.  He is also a writer who always provides supporting
arguments for his opinions.  So I read on eagerly to see why he was moved
to such rhapsodic praise about Katahn.  His explanation is
uncharacteristically "squishy."

>She makes you feel you're inside the composer's mind.  Again and again,
>I caught myself thinking, "This is how the music should go." I put it down
>to a momentary lapse, since Beethoven's music can "go" a lot of different
>ways.  Still nothing seems over- or underdone.

My question:  assuming that she is not an artist on the level of a Schnabel
or a Serkin, is it possible that Steve's strong reaction is, at least in
part, attributable to the effect of the music being played in the equal
temperament system? This is very familiar material, so something must be
going on to make it sound so "right" to him.  Basically, he is saying,
"This sounds like what Beethoven might have been hearing when he wrote it."
Sure, it can "go" lots of different ways in interpretation; we are playing
it nearly two hundred years later on a totally different instrument.  But
Steve heard this performance as "right," a phrase he seldom employs and,
appropriately cautions us against in our listening.  So, I am still not
persuaded that there isn't more to this issue of tunings than we have so
far uncovered.

Ed