John Kregarman:

>Peter Ramson recommended the "History" set.

Did he?  I thought so at first, but concluded that he hadn't.

>I went to the web site, and low and behold, this looks like the CD's
>Berkshire offers on what they list as the TIM label!  I just picked up
>10 CD's featuring Mitropoulos (how could one go wrong for under
>$20?)

Easily: if poor quality makes them not worth hearing a second time.  Or,
worse, what if one can't run through all 10 CDs even once?

>I would expect the Schnabels sound to be OK too, and, again, at $1.99 a
>disk.

My equipment's pretty basic, but I don't mind spending double, triple
in some cases, for CDs in better than okay sound.  I'm not just being
argumentative: the great works on a couple of my CDs simply fail to
redeem the godawful sound of their recordings or transfers.

So I remain curious: aside from listening on RealPlayer -- as Peter
Ramson had, before he "...wonder[ed] which recording is preferable." --
would anyone who's heard both the Naxos and Historical sets of Schnabel
doing Beethoven's sonatas care to comment?

Bert Bailey
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