Don summed up: >Overall, my three favorite sets are now Brendel/Rattle, Brendel/Levine, >and Perahia/Haitink. I share Don's affection for Perahia's set. I've now listened to Brendel's set with interest. The more I hear of Brendel's playing, live and on record, the more bemused I am by his high reputation. His chords crash like a pub pianist's. His keyboard palette and tone-colour remain very plain, his phrasing's emphases and sforzandi bobbing like lumps in porridge. While Brendel clunked his way through a concerto's passagework, I counted twenty-five double portraits of him and Simon Rattle in the CD case and booklet. Alfred and Simon chortling in conversation. Alfred and Simon beautifully backlit on a sunny afternoon. Alfred and Simon acknowledging applause on the Musikvereinsaal platform. Alfred murmuring in Simon's ear. A view of the backs of Alfred and Simon's heads, on the back of the CD case. I couldn't find a picture of Beethoven, just to remind myself of what the composer looked like. These performances tend towards moderate tempi, so that finales dance and spark less than they can. Simon Rattle squeezes some tart sonorities from the VPO, which doesn't ladle its usual creamy textures over the music; e.g. in the 3rd Concerto, I liked the gaunt woodwind chord balances in the first movement, and the very brusque string interjections of the second. The Phillips recording spotlights the piano too much (so that it obscures quieter orchestral comments), highlights the woodwind to revealing effect, understates the French horns and makes the timpani sound spongy. Just in case you think I'm being being harsher than a Brendel fortissimo, I compared his 5th Piano Concerto with two other performances: Horowitz/CSO/Reiner (1952) and Fischer/Philharmonia/Furtwangler (1951). Both these recordings have more dynamic first movements with invigorating forward momentum, while Brendel's at 20:54 is one of the slowest and most episodic I've heard. Horowitz can be a flash player (as in the first movement mini-cadenza at m.493) but his phrasing and rubato have more life and suppleness than Brendel's. Fischer's tone colour above the treble stave is wonderfully pellucid, and Furtwangler makes an infectious romp of the last movement. In the slow movement, both he and Reiner bring out the violin melody more effectively than Rattle. I suppose Brendel's plain-spoken style is alright, but it suffers in comparison with the playing of other pianists of a similar reputation. James Kearney [log in to unmask]