Richard Todd responded to me: >>For me these performances are indeed unique. They were played >>more as though the music was "modern" than how we are used to >>hearing Bartok these days. > >And that's exactly why the general musical public resisted Bartok >so mightily in those days. Back then is was presented as Modern. >Now it's usually presented as Music. Much is to be said for the way Bartok played his own music...he did not accentuate the dissonances...however I would love to have heard how he played his own First Piano Concerto. Ok, so I like my Bartok with more bite, but indeed, at this point in my life, I wonder how I ever thought of him as being a "modern." Karl