Hall Jeffrey <[log in to unmask]> wrote of Balakirev's Islamey: >For the record, Berezovsky's recording on Teldec gets a rosette in the >Penguin Guide and I've heard good things elsewhere about the recordings >of Julius Katchen and Simon Barere. Berezovsky's recording is pretty solid. I have not yet heard Bronfman's but he supposedly uses a different version (?earlier). Barere is very fast and exciting. The sound is dated. I've heard of the existence of another Barere performance- perhaps an outake which is supposed to be better than the one usually heard. Does anyone know about this? I learned of it from Harold Schonberg.. Another worthy performance is by Panyas Lyras, a silver medalist in the Van Cliburn Competition, when this recording was made. I wish Ivo Pogorelich would record it. I saw him do it for an encore in a NY recital. Alan J. Briker