John Dalmas writes: >At the same time I feel I have to mention -- lest any of Don's readers >come away with a limited impression -- recordings of this sonata, and >very good ones in my view, that should have been in Don's library before >he attempted such a survey. John's "shoulds" belong to him; I have my own set of standards. Limited impression? I state up front what recordings I am reviewing and make no inference that I am reviewing all recordings available. Any list member who assumes I am reviewing all the worthy recordings isn't reading very well. Further, the vast bulk of reviews that I read in periodicals or on the net describe the "subject" recording and might mention one or two other recordings, the whole review taking up a few small paragraphs. I expand on those types of reviews, providing a detailed evaluation of the "subject" and the other versions included for comparison. My point is that I consider it unreasonable for a person to take issue with the recordings I omit, since I include more than generally found in other reviews. I have no comment as to the quality of my reviews versus the reviews of others, but I'm sure that I spend many more hours listening during the review process than most other reviewers. A reader can consider that to be of value or not; I think it is significant. >I'm thinking of Vladimir Ashkenazy's 1966 recording for Decca, and >Leon Fleisher's earlier recording on Columbia... I wasn't thinking of them at all. Since John very much likes the Ashkenazy and Fleisher versions, he might consider spending his time posting his own reviews of these performances instead of complaining about what I review. His complaints have no value; his reviews likely would be of value. 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. Don Satz [log in to unmask]