Don Satz wrote:

>Many list members have posted about the greater rewards of live
>performances vs.  recordings, including the "communication" between artist
>and audience members.  Not sharing this view, I found the following words
>from Maria Joao Pires in the January Gramophone rather interesting:
>
>"Recording is really the only thing I like to do for the public.
>I don't like to play on stage - I have never liked that.  I don't
>feel comfortable.  ...

This was also the view of Glenn Gould late in his career.  He clearly
valued recorded music very highly, and suggests in one of his essays that
home listeners had the freedom to mix and match performances - one movement
from this recording, the next from that one, etc.  It is interesting to
contrast this attitude with that of Levine, who considers a recording to
be just a souvenir of the live performance.

Bernard Chasan