Tom Connor:

>I can't help but be impressed at the number of recordings recommended on
>this list that are over 20 or so years old.  If the stereo age began in,
>oh say 1958, its just over 40 years old.  I bet most of the recordings I
>see recommended here are pre 1978.  (Except of course, Brendel playing
>Beethoven Sonatas.) Is there a difference in the performers between these
>2 periods.

When I first started reading Gramophone in the 60s, I was frequently
irritated when a reviewer would write of, for example, a new record of a
Sibelius symphony and more often than not, compare it unfavourably with
Kajanus, whose recordings were unavailable at the time.  I found it hard
to understand how someone could prefer a scratchy old 1930s recording to
a stereo LP.  Now, of course, with over forty years of collecting behind
me, I do the same myself and hanker after the recordings I loved - and in
many cases, still do - when I was young, and still use many of these, or
the memory of them, as benchmarks for new ones.  I suspect that a fair
percentage of MCML contributors are of similar vintage which might explain
why recordings from 20+ years ago tend to feature in recommendations.  Of
course, it also suggests that by and large, things *were* better then!

Richard Pennycuick
[log in to unmask]