Dave Wolf wrote: >As long as you're responding, you might as well >mention performances of the particular pieces you name. Celebrating Beethoven's birthday... For me...the 4th Piano Concerto...the slow movement being, for me, one of his most brilliant bits of writing...in many ways, it still sounds "avant garde" to me...my performance choice...Serkin, Toscanini...last movement sounds like an express train. 5th Piano Concerto, first movement played by d'Albert. It is for me one of the most idiosyncratic, eccentric and personal readings I have ever heard of Beethoven's music. Symphony No.5 conducted by Nikisch... Symphony No.3 conducted by Albert Coates...he plays it like it was the scherzo from the Tchaikovsky 6th! I guess I like performances that let me hear the music in a totally different light...for in some ways, it reminds of the genius of someone who could write music that can "work" within the context of such a diversity of interpretive perspectives. Karl