I had provided a listing of recorded period performances of Haydn
piano sonatas.  John Wiser subsequently provided his opinions of those
recordings.  With just one exception, I agree fully with John's views.

John wrote:

>Another educated guess would lead me to avoid anything from Gasparo.
>They are very inconsistent in their engineering, and wildly so in
>their A & R judgements.

I'm not a big fan of Gasparo, but I did enjoy the Shirley Matthews disc of
CPE Bach harpsichord works on the same label.  The only problem with that
disc was that the sound was "in your face".  I had to attach my equalizer
to get close to a sound I could live with for more than a few minutes.  I
guess I'm not making this sound too appealing.  Bob Draper should probably
bypass Gasparo/Matthews for the Haydn piano works and go with the more
reliable recordings of Bilson, Staier, and Cohen.

I am very gratified that although Haydn's piano works did not contribute
much to his reputation, there are so many superb artists who have recorded
them:  the above three plus Brendel, Schiff, Ax, Gould, Richter, Haebler,
Kalish, Ranki, and Pletnev.  That's an outstanding line-up.

One Haydn recording I never heard but am still interested in is the
performance of Ivar Gotkovsky on Pyramid.  Anyone familiar with that
recording?

Don Satz
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