"Big names" are, in a small hand, reputation for a real merit; in a big hand, an effort of Marketers to create great best-sellers to their companies. Some "big names" are just (or in a bigger part) artificial bubbles, like - in my opinion - Z. Metha, Pavaroti, F. Ozawa, and others. Some of these "big names" may be really good, instead "big names", like Karajan, Horowitz or I. Pogorelich. I believe many of the "big names" are really better the their rivals, but not with the same proportion that their fame. That is: the distance between the "sizes of the names" is much bigger than the distance between the abilities. By the way, this distance is not a constant. A "bad player" can have a better performance, in one piece, than a great player in a bad lucky day. I have the Sonata K. 310(?) "Alla Turca" with the "big named" Glenn Gould, and I don't think it is a good record, even I think he is a great pianist with enough merit to be a "big name". And I also have the Sonata op. 53 "Waldstein" of Beethoven with the "thin named" Dubravska Tomsic (I am not sure the orthography), who has, in my opinion, it's best Third Movement of this sonata that I ever heard - and I am comparing to Arrau, Kempff, Horowitz and Brendel, with whom I have this sonata too. It is truth that in the others two movements he is not so great, as in the other two sonatas I have with him: the Pathetic and the Moonlight, that he plays just like a good scholar. Not enough to be a "big name", instead to have "Waldstein"'s best Third Mov. The First's best I think is Kempff's, and the Second's Brendel's recording. Among the ones I know, no one is the best in the all three movements. And Brendel, Arrau, Horowitz, Kempff and Gould have enough merit to be "VERY BIG NAMES" and Tomsic doesn't. Then... I don't disagree with existing "big names" and about the Penguin Guide, well, I many times agree with their opinions, and because I agree, I trust them. Sometimes I disagree, too, but when a critics insists on "big names" is because there were - before him - too many "big reputations" of other critics against which he can't fight. There is the pression - the deaf pression - of the big Companies, and the professional risk of the big market - great part of his readers - do not like his new opinions. It is too dangerous for them to say - if they agree with me - "Glenn Gould's Mozart's 'Alla Turca' is weak", or "Even having one of the best Hammerklaviers, Brendel doesn't have a good op. 111". The best things to do to correct distortions and unfair reputations are: We continue to pay attention to our intuitions and to our feelings when hearing music. To give a chance - like said Kevin Sutton - for new and anonymous players. To hear new players without prejudice against them. To hear "big names" without forgetting they are humans and may commit mistakes, too. To have no afraid of to be wrong, courage to make your own opinion, and humilty to correct it, when wrong. To know that, even having each one your own taste, things are not so relative. Some performances are, in fact, better than others but there is no way to proof it, because rationality does not absorve cognitive references, aestyhetical experiences or emotional memory, that are the natural tools to judge the Art. "But then, how to discover? Each one with your one opinion, and no one can proof it?!" Endless search, yes, but that is the only way to get a little closer to some - if exists - truth. I never knew some one that had Salieri better than Mozart. Beethoven's early sonatas betters than the late ones. How, even with so many different opinions, some many people can have so much more equal opinions? How so many and so different persons can have - almost a unanimity - Shakespeare as the greatest writer ever? Rational conclusion? Of course not. It's a Human matter. Reason is smaller than the Human, just a part of it. Or you have cognitive ability to identify the better one or you have not. Experience may help. No one I can imagine is enough big or may have cognitive energy to contain inside a so much rich subjectivity that can identify so many secrets that the Art alone. Find persons with same opinions still is the only way to confirm our owns. To give a chance to others opinions is the best way to grow, to find in ourselves hills of perception, memory and subjectivity where we never went. So let's go to the List! Translated from the Portuguese to English (!!!): "I am the Man I suffered, I went there" (Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass) Best Regards, Renato Vinicius