Pianists before 1960

[slofstra]

I listen to piano music more than any other genre, and in the main that's because I often tune in and out as I'm doing other work.
I've especially enjoyed some of the piano box sets in my CD collection, and often these represent career retrospectives of certain pianists.

Here's a list of pianists, represented in my collection, who recorded prior to 1960, followed by the number of recordings that I have. A 'recording' means a composition in the repertoire, not a CD.
The asterisk represents pianists that I go to fairly often and that should be on the list of any serious listener to keyboard music.

And now, the question. What names jump to mind that I am missing and should be included in any pre-1960 retrospective? The ones where you would say, it's a crime that you don't have such-and-such, Henry. What kind of classical CD collector are you anyway? (Okay, you can stop there.) Please also make reference to the repertoire in which that pianist excels.

Here is my list:
Anda, Geza 19 *
Arrau, Claudio 92 *
Brendel, Alfred 51 * Schubert, Beethoven, more Schubert
Ciccolini, Aldo 11
Cliburn, Van 21
Curzon, Clifford 53 * Mozart
Cziffra, Georges 230 * Liszt
de Larrocha, Alicia 48 * various Spanish
Fischer, Annie 26 * Beethoven
Fischer, Edwin 34 * Bach
Gould, Glenn 277 * Bach, Gibbons
Haskil, Clara 33 * Mozart
Horowitz, Vladimir 50
Kapell, William 135 * Rachmaninoff
Kempff, Wilhelm 22
Lipatti, Dinu 80 * Chopin
Michelangeli, Arturo Benedetti 25
Moravec, Ivan 11
Nat, Yves 58 * Schumann
Pizarro, Artur 11
Rachmaninoff, Sergei 110 * uh, Rachmaninoff
Richter, Sviatoslav 456 * everything
Rubinstein, Artur 685 * Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Mozart
Schnabel, Artur 27 * Beethoven
Solomon 13 *
Vasary, Tamas 11

[Rach3]

A couple here ; I may add others:

Gieseking, the earlier the better, Debussy

Backhaus, Beethoven,Mozart,Brahms

Badura-Skoda, Chopin, Schubert

Sofronitsky , Scriabin

[Rach3]

A couple here ; I may add others:

Rosenthal, Chopin
Kentner, Liszt,Lyapunov
Hofmann , anything
Friedman, Chopin
Casadesus, Ravel,Debussy,Mozart
Gilels, anything
Cortot, Chopin, pre-1940

[Holden Fourth]

Cortot Chopin, Schumann
Fischer Edwin
Renard
Ashkenazy - Chopin Etudes in Moscow
Mewton-Wood
Hess anything

[Philip M]

Petri
Borowsky
Wild
Nyiereghazi
Erdmann
Kreutzer

[barney]

Petri
Borowsky
Wild
Nyiereghazi
Erdmann
Kreutzer

These are very good additions, all of you. Philip, having listened for so long and - like Henry - especially to piano music, I am not often surprised. But I've never even heard of two on your list, Nyiereghazi and Erdmann. Thank you, I'll have to follow that up.
A couple more:
Jorge Bolet
Daniel Barenboim
Shura Cherkassky
Clifford Curzon
Emil Gilels
Ingrid Habler
Byron Janis
Julius Katchen
Stephen Kovacevich (for a while married to Argerich)
Alicia de Larrocha
Benno Moisewitsch
John Ogdon
Paderewski
Rosalyn Tureck
Earl Wild
Maria Yudina

[maestrob]

Wow! You all got there before me!

I would only add Cecile Ousset, whose magnificent set of complete Beethoven Variations is included in the recently released box pictured below, released, I believe, for the first time outside of France. Although she's not strictly pre-1960's, her Diabelli Variations are achingly sensitive and nuanced, worth alone the price of the box:



Also Mieczyslaw Horszowski, who recorded his final recital CD as a remarkable celebration of his 100th birthday! His chamber music recordings are filled with sincere, nuanced playing, where he weaves in and out with his partners, and whose Mozart has rarely, if ever, been bettered.

[slofstra]

Cortot Chopin, Schumann
Fischer Edwin
Renard
Ashkenazy - Chopin Etudes in Moscow
Mewton-Wood
Hess anything

Fischer is on my list and I listen to my Fischer box set quite often. I have the massive Ashkenazy box set and didn't see him as pre-1960 largely. But maybe I'm wrong about that. Ashkenazy's Chopin is awesome.

[slofstra]

Petri
Borowsky
Wild
Nyiereghazi
Erdmann
Kreutzer

These are very good additions, all of you. Philip, having listened for so long and - like Henry - especially to piano music, I am not often surprised. But I've never even heard of two on your list, Nyiereghazi and Erdmann. Thank you, I'll have to follow that up.
A couple more:
Jorge Bolet
Daniel Barenboim
Shura Cherkassky
Clifford Curzon
Emil Gilels
Ingrid Habler
Byron Janis
Julius Katchen
Stephen Kovacevich (for a while married to Argerich)
Alicia de Larrocha
Benno Moisewitsch
John Ogdon
Paderewski
Rosalyn Tureck
Earl Wild
Maria Yudina

Curzon and de Larrocha are already on my list. I mention that not to catch people up, but just so you know I already greatly admire and listen to them.

[slofstra]

Thanks so much for all these suggestions. There is a method to my madness. Since I listen to so much of this material already, I'd like to build a larger collection just in this particular area. One of the virtues of focusing on this material is that there are only a finite number of recordings available.

Still open to further updates ...

[barney]

Thanks so much for all these suggestions. There is a method to my madness. Since I listen to so much of this material already, I'd like to build a larger collection just in this particular area. One of the virtues of focusing on this material is that there are only a finite number of recordings available.

Still open to further updates ...

It may be finite, Henry, but to all intents and purposes it is infinite, as you are unlikely to have enough time to locate and listen to them all before you die! I'm assuming you probably don't have another 50 years left! Sorry for including two you had already named - the problem is I can't see your entry while writing mine. I also misspelled Ingrid Haebler.

[barney]

Oh, and I meant to add Prokofiev to the list.

[maestrob]

Oh, and I meant to add Prokofiev to the list.

Definitely! Prokofiev's recording of his own Piano Concerto III with Coppola conducting is quite fascinating, even though I prefer Szell/Graffman.



How about Leonard Bernstein, who recorded some excellent Mozart at the keyboard?

[Holden Fourth]

A few more (from my CD Collection and downloads).

Lili Kraus - Mozart PS
Adrian Aeschbacher
Stefan Askenase - Chopin
Ania Dorfmann
Jean-Marie Darre - Saint-Seans PCs
Ignaz Friedman - a must hear!
Percy Grainger
Maryla Jonas
Eileen Joyce
Raoul Koczalski
Josef Lhevinne
Marcelle Meyer
Guiomar Novaes
Rudolf Serkin - LvB Sonatas from the 50s

[Rach3]

I would add:

Firkusny and Sandor, for Bartok and Martinu
Friedberg, for Brahms, studied a bit with Brahms and Clara Schumann
Lamond and Von Sauer, both studied with Liszt
DePachman, the Arbiter Records cds

[barney]

It's getting to be a good list. I should have thought of the Australians Grainger and Joyce.
WE are also getting more of whom I never heard, such as Koczalski.

[Philip M]

“These are very good additions, all of you. Philip, having listened for so long and - like Henry - especially to piano music, I am not often surprised. But I've never even heard of two on your list, Nyiereghazi and Erdmann.“

Ervin Nyiregyházi had a late resurgence of interest in the late 1970‘s and even some LPs issued by Sony. He had a massive tone, absolutely huge. He was Hungarian by birth but settled in California. He died in 1987 aged 84. He also had no less than 10 wives!

Eduard Erdmann was Latvian/German and highly cultured. A wonderful player of Schubert, Schumann, Beethoven etc. He died in 1958 aged 62. I was introduced to his playing by the conductor Erich Schmid who played me his Schumann Fantasiestücke in his flat in Basel. Try his Schumann on YouTube - there’s also some Nyiregyhazi on YouTube.

[jserraglio]

Friedrich Wührer
Walter Klein

[maestrob]

A few more (from my CD Collection and downloads).

Lili Kraus - Mozart PS
Adrian Aeschbacher
Stefan Askenase - Chopin
Ania Dorfmann
Jean-Marie Darre - Saint-Seans PCs
Ignaz Friedman - a must hear!
Percy Grainger
Maryla Jonas
Eileen Joyce
Raoul Koczalski
Josef Lhevinne
Marcelle Meyer
Guiomar Novaes
Rudolf Serkin - LvB Sonatas from the 50s

Ric:

Thank you for remembering Guiomar Novaes! Good grief, how did she slip my mind????

Her local recital, given in my middle school auditorium which seated 800, when I was eleven, was my first live piano recital, and she was quite awesome to hear, playing everything from Bach to Chopin and Beethoven. My neighbor, who was a distant cousin of my mother's and was on the board who had organized the event, invited me to sit next to her on the front row, and since I had just won a school competition playing Liszt and Mendelssohn that year, I was completely overwhelmed by her command of the music. I was so enthusiastic about her performance that I rushed backstage to ask for her autograph, which she graciously scrawled in HUGE script across the front of my program!

I have collected her recordings ever since. She recorded for Vox records at the end of her career in fine sound (some mono, some stereo), and with Otto Klemperer, among other conductors. Much of her output is available on American amazon for free listening now. IMHO, her Chopin Nocturnes, recorded for Vox in the middle 1950's, are equal to Rubinstein's any day, and I often revisit them:

[barney]

I have not a single recording of this obviously exemplary pianist. That will change!

[maestrob]

I have not a single recording of this obviously exemplary pianist. That will change!

Wonderful!

You can avoid the two-disc set of her 78RPM discs that has recently come out: it's for collectors only. I do recommend her many Vox CDs, which have thankfully remained in print over the years. That said, some of the orchestras are a bit scrappy, but her playing is invariably quite wonderful, and her solo discs are uniformly excellent. I do regret that she did not record more Bach: what I heard her play live at age eleven still resonates in my mind as a great concert experience.

Happy listening!

[Rach3]

I have not a single recording of this obviously exemplary pianist. That will change!

I’d recommend Novaes’ Chopin Nocturnes as a good place to start, sample, fww.

[maestrob]

I have not a single recording of this obviously exemplary pianist. That will change!

I’d recommend Novaes’ Chopin Nocturnes as a good place to start, sample, fww.

Certainly! Also her Schumann.

[barney]

Yes, I've heard/read a number of times that her Chopin Nocturnes are great.
In fact, I just checked on YouTube, and her nocturnes from 1954 are there. A couple of them will get a hearing today.
Here's the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-2NfNGfCQU

[Rach3]

Yes, I've heard/read a number of times that her Chopin Nocturnes are great.

She can be a bit " dreamy " at times, but fww:

http://www.radiochopin.org/episodes/ite ... op-10-no-3

“The most dazzling meteor that shot across the pianistic sky the past season was the young Brazilian pianist Guiomar Novães…The marvel of it! Hers is surely a gift straight out of Heaven!”

Those words in praise of Novães, a native of Sao Paolo, appeared in 1916, when the pianist was 21…and already a seasoned pro. Novaes was literally raised at the piano bench: “Sometimes it seems I learned to play before I learned to speak,” she said, adding. “I knew my notes before I had mastered the letters of the alphabet.” Recognizing her talent, the Brazilian government arranged for her to audition for the Paris Conservatory. Think it’s hard to get into Harvard? The conservatory had just two openings for foreign students – and 387 applicants. Think it’s hard to get past the jury on American Idol? Novaes auditioned in front of Claude Debussy, Gabriel Faure, and Moritz Moskowski. What got her in? A program that included Chopin’s Ballade No. 3.

Debussy, who revered Chopin, wrote his amazement about “the little Brazilian girl who came to the platform and, forgetting about public and jury, played with tremendous beauty and complete absorption.” Which pretty much set the tone for Guiomar Novaes’ illustrious career.

She would go on to be called “A musician by the grace of God,” “The young genius of the piano,” and even “The Paderewska of the Pampas” – the latter by Chopin biographer James Huneker, showing more musical discernment than knowledge of geography. She was especially noted for her performances of Chopin, Schumann, and her old Paris examiner Debussy.

What sets her Chopin apart? In his Piano Examiner blog, Leonard Bogat praises her Chopin for its “exquisite counterpoint,” and “In the end one feels that one has heard the inner meaning of some of this music for the first time.” Another critic sums up her Etudes: “Tears to my eyes; notes and nuances I never knew.”

Guiomar Novães: A great, heaven-sent Chopinist. - Frank Dominguez

[Lance]

Initially, on the first list, i missed Gilels, Moiseiwitsch, Myra Hess and quite a few other from before 1960. But I also see many have added which I would have also added such as Godowsky, Elly Ney, Simon Barere, Edward Kilenyi, Landowska, Egon Petri, Friedman, Lhevene, Rachmaninoff, Gieseking, Edwin Fischer, Levitski, Casadesus, Sauer, D'Albert, Ernst Levy, and on and on I could go, but I think most or many of those may have been added in subsequent posts to the first. I can only add how wonderful it is to have so many recordings of all these great pianists whose art can now still be heard via recordings.

[slofstra]

Thanks so much for all these suggestions. There is a method to my madness. Since I listen to so much of this material already, I'd like to build a larger collection just in this particular area. One of the virtues of focusing on this material is that there are only a finite number of recordings available.

Still open to further updates ...

It may be finite, Henry, but to all intents and purposes it is infinite, as you are unlikely to have enough time to locate and listen to them all before you die! I'm assuming you probably don't have another 50 years left! Sorry for including two you had already named - the problem is I can't see your entry while writing mine. I also misspelled Ingrid Haebler.

I won't be able to listen to every CD I own at this point. Although I may come close. It is nice to have a collection from which I can pick something good to listen at any point. It's the old 80-20 rule. 80% of listening is from 20% of the collection. But you're absolutely correct. Still it would be good to have a representative sample.

[barney]

Thanks so much for all these suggestions. There is a method to my madness. Since I listen to so much of this material already, I'd like to build a larger collection just in this particular area. One of the virtues of focusing on this material is that there are only a finite number of recordings available.

Still open to further updates ...

It may be finite, Henry, but to all intents and purposes it is infinite, as you are unlikely to have enough time to locate and listen to them all before you die! I'm assuming you probably don't have another 50 years left! Sorry for including two you had already named - the problem is I can't see your entry while writing mine. I also misspelled Ingrid Haebler.

I won't be able to listen to every CD I own at this point. Although I may come close. It is nice to have a collection from which I can pick something good to listen at any point. It's the old 80-20 rule. 80% of listening is from 20% of the collection. But you're absolutely correct. Still it would be good to have a representative sample.

You can enjoy the hunt for new-old performances as long as you draw breath. And divide that between the ones you already know and love. I have no doubt we will both be doing that.

[barney]

Yes, I've heard/read a number of times that her Chopin Nocturnes are great.

She can be a bit " dreamy " at times, but fww:

http://www.radiochopin.org/episodes/ite ... op-10-no-3

“The most dazzling meteor that shot across the pianistic sky the past season was the young Brazilian pianist Guiomar Novães…The marvel of it! Hers is surely a gift straight out of Heaven!”

Those words in praise of Novães, a native of Sao Paolo, appeared in 1916, when the pianist was 21…and already a seasoned pro. Novaes was literally raised at the piano bench: “Sometimes it seems I learned to play before I learned to speak,” she said, adding. “I knew my notes before I had mastered the letters of the alphabet.” Recognizing her talent, the Brazilian government arranged for her to audition for the Paris Conservatory. Think it’s hard to get into Harvard? The conservatory had just two openings for foreign students – and 387 applicants. Think it’s hard to get past the jury on American Idol? Novaes auditioned in front of Claude Debussy, Gabriel Faure, and Moritz Moskowski. What got her in? A program that included Chopin’s Ballade No. 3.

Debussy, who revered Chopin, wrote his amazement about “the little Brazilian girl who came to the platform and, forgetting about public and jury, played with tremendous beauty and complete absorption.” Which pretty much set the tone for Guiomar Novaes’ illustrious career.

She would go on to be called “A musician by the grace of God,” “The young genius of the piano,” and even “The Paderewska of the Pampas” – the latter by Chopin biographer James Huneker, showing more musical discernment than knowledge of geography. She was especially noted for her performances of Chopin, Schumann, and her old Paris examiner Debussy.

What sets her Chopin apart? In his Piano Examiner blog, Leonard Bogat praises her Chopin for its “exquisite counterpoint,” and “In the end one feels that one has heard the inner meaning of some of this music for the first time.” Another critic sums up her Etudes: “Tears to my eyes; notes and nuances I never knew.”

Guiomar Novães: A great, heaven-sent Chopinist. - Frank Dominguez

Great info there; love the Paderewska of the Pampas, also moved by the comment of Debussy. I did listen to an hour of the nocturnes today, and she is indeed exquisite. What a sense of shape, what beautiful and utterly natural rubato, what delicacy of fingerwork.

[maestrob]

Novaes's recording of Chopin's Piano Concerto I is well worth seeking out. She made the stereo LP (now on a Vox CD) with the equally sensitive Bamberg Symphony, and, while her tempo in the third movement is a bit too slow, her Romance (second movement) is the most beautiful and delicately played version I have ever heard. I still rank it better than Rubinstein, and when I need to calm down after the events of the day, I often put just that piece on my stereo to remind me of the great musical wonders our civilization is capable of producing.

[barney]

Thanks for another excellent tip.

I've just ordered the 3 CD Vox set, the 2-CD 78 set, Novaes with Szell (and the Hamelin opera transcriptions CD) from Presto Classical in Britain. Presto didn't have the Chopin 1. I got the Hamelin as downloads earlier, but I much prefer the CD format.

[slofstra]

So ....
A few days ago, I targeted a few names on this list, and became quite frustrated in trying to source CDs. I guess I was hoping for an independent seller who would offer one stop shopping for the 4 CDs on the list, at a reasonable price. Frustration.
Well today, I decided, at a minimum, to purchase the EMI Icon John Ogdon set, which isn't around in great quantities, but there was one seller on amazon.ca who had it at a reasonable price ($100). I hope they have stock, which I've found to be the curse of amazon third parties: selling from an empty shelf. Not only that but you can get delayed shipping messages for months before they finally tell you they don't have it. I became quite excited with John Ogdon based on sampling his playing on my streaming service.
And I added the Guiomar Novaes 3 CD Vox Chopin set. It's not hard to find at all and was on my original hit list.
I then spent quite a bit of time browsing the list of additional stuff that amazon shows you when you look at something like a John Ogdon box set, and ended up with the Robert Casadesus, Complete Columbia; the Peter Serkin, Complete RCA; and father Rudolf Serkin, DG Edition box sets.
The whole problem is fellows like Barney who write such glowing reviews of this material on Amazon. Sold me.
But my thinking was also this: sets I had thought about a few years ago are now gone or available only at much higher prices. Better snap these up now. Joyful times ahead. A few of these arrive tomorrow already.

[barney]

The whole problem is fellows like Barney who write such glowing reviews of this material on Amazon. Sold me.

I'm sure you won't regret those purchases, though I can't think Ogden cheap at $100. I bought the Novaes 3-CD box set from Presto Classical, which is to say I ordered it. The website said it was out of stock but would arrive by December 2. Your warning about being fobbed off, then finally told they don't have it, alarmed me. I hope that's not the case this time.

But re reviews on Amazon, surely I didn't review any of those. I don't have them. And I can't remember ever leaving a review on Amazon. Or did you just mean people like me - opinionated, only too willing to shove my opinions down other people's throats?

[slofstra]

The whole problem is fellows like Barney who write such glowing reviews of this material on Amazon. Sold me.

I'm sure you won't regret those purchases, though I can't think Ogden cheap at $100. I bought the Novaes 3-CD box set from Presto Classical, which is to say I ordered it. The website said it was out of stock but would arrive by December 2. Your warning about being fobbed off, then finally told they don't have it, alarmed me. I hope that's not the case this time.

But re reviews on Amazon, surely I didn't review any of those. I don't have them. And I can't remember ever leaving a review on Amazon. Or did you just mean people like me - opinionated, only too willing to shove my opinions down other people's throats?

Yes, I certainly meant reviewers in general, and having read your reviews at various points, they are in the same tenor.
You'll probably be fine with Presto; I was referring to the smaller vendors who set up virtual store fronts on the Amazon web site.
And the $100 price is high for an EMI Icon set, but I wanted this set. I had also seen it priced at $160 and up, Canadian dollars not US.

[slofstra]

The whole problem is fellows like Barney who write such glowing reviews of this material on Amazon. Sold me.

I'm sure you won't regret those purchases, though I can't think Ogden cheap at $100. I bought the Novaes 3-CD box set from Presto Classical, which is to say I ordered it. The website said it was out of stock but would arrive by December 2. Your warning about being fobbed off, then finally told they don't have it, alarmed me. I hope that's not the case this time.

But re reviews on Amazon, surely I didn't review any of those. I don't have them. And I can't remember ever leaving a review on Amazon. Or did you just mean people like me - opinionated, only too willing to shove my opinions down other people's throats?

Yes, I certainly meant reviewers in general, and having read your reviews at various points, they are in the same tenor.
You'll probably be fine with Presto; I was referring to the smaller vendors who set up virtual store fronts on the Amazon web site.
And the $100 price is high for an EMI Icon set, but I wanted this set. I had also seen it priced at $160 and up, Canadian dollars not US.

[Holden Fourth]

This is the Rudolf Serkin recording to get. This is at Presto.

[barney]

The whole problem is fellows like Barney who write such glowing reviews of this material on Amazon. Sold me.

I'm sure you won't regret those purchases, though I can't think Ogden cheap at $100. I bought the Novaes 3-CD box set from Presto Classical, which is to say I ordered it. The website said it was out of stock but would arrive by December 2. Your warning about being fobbed off, then finally told they don't have it, alarmed me. I hope that's not the case this time.

But re reviews on Amazon, surely I didn't review any of those. I don't have them. And I can't remember ever leaving a review on Amazon. Or did you just mean people like me - opinionated, only too willing to shove my opinions down other people's throats?

Yes, I certainly meant reviewers in general, and having read your reviews at various points, they are in the same tenor.
You'll probably be fine with Presto; I was referring to the smaller vendors who set up virtual store fronts on the Amazon web site.
And the $100 price is high for an EMI Icon set, but I wanted this set. I had also seen it priced at $160 and up, Canadian dollars not US.

You're not very flattering Henry! When I say I shove my opinions down people's throats you're not supposed to agree. You're supposed to say "not at all", or "but they are such intelligent opinions". That's certainly taught me a lesson about self-deprecation.

[slofstra]

This is the Rudolf Serkin recording to get. This is at Presto.

Thank you. I did just get a 9 CD set on DG, released this year. (Ordered it yesterday, on my doorstep at 8 AM this morning.) Apparently, the DG set are late in life recordings.
This will go on the list for my next round, unless I end up not liking the set I just received, which is doubtful.

[slofstra]

The whole problem is fellows like Barney who write such glowing reviews of this material on Amazon. Sold me.

I'm sure you won't regret those purchases, though I can't think Ogden cheap at $100. I bought the Novaes 3-CD box set from Presto Classical, which is to say I ordered it. The website said it was out of stock but would arrive by December 2. Your warning about being fobbed off, then finally told they don't have it, alarmed me. I hope that's not the case this time.

But re reviews on Amazon, surely I didn't review any of those. I don't have them. And I can't remember ever leaving a review on Amazon. Or did you just mean people like me - opinionated, only too willing to shove my opinions down other people's throats?

Yes, I certainly meant reviewers in general, and having read your reviews at various points, they are in the same tenor.
You'll probably be fine with Presto; I was referring to the smaller vendors who set up virtual store fronts on the Amazon web site.
And the $100 price is high for an EMI Icon set, but I wanted this set. I had also seen it priced at $160 and up, Canadian dollars not US.

You're not very flattering Henry! When I say I shove my opinions down people's throats you're not supposed to agree. You're supposed to say "not at all", or "but they are such intelligent opinions". That's certainly taught me a lesson about self-deprecation.

Ahem. I was elaborating on my earlier comment on "glowing reviews". But you knew that, of course.

Barney, could you do me a favour? Name one classical recording you have reviewed on amazon.com that I can use a key to access your reviews. Amazon is constantly shifting things around, especially in Canada, so things are hard to find. Right now, my Amazon.ca account is set up to show me Canadian reviews, of which there are few, and then a series of reviews in European languages, mainly French and Italian. PITA.
I end up going to amazon.com to learn about a product, then check the price and order on Amazon.ca.

[barney]

Henry, over the years I have written several million words for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, probably at least half a million on music and more than 200 CD reviews, but I never put a review on Amazon. Sorry.

[barney]

I have sent you some information on PM, Henry.

[slofstra]

Henry, over the years I have written several million words for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, probably at least half a million on music and more than 200 CD reviews, but I never put a review on Amazon. Sorry.

Oops. Well I'm not completely bonkers. A bit of searching on the site and I realize that I was thinking of CMG contributor 'Scott Morrison' who has not been on CMG since 2011. I must have been confused because he writes almost as well as you do. I see that he is still active on amazon.com!
https://www.amazon.com/gp/profile/amzn1 ... tr?ie=UTF8

[Holden Fourth]

This is the Rudolf Serkin recording to get. This is at Presto.

Thank you. I did just get a 9 CD set on DG, released this year. (Ordered it yesterday, on my doorstep at 8 AM this morning.) Apparently, the DG set are late in life recordings.
This will go on the list for my next round, unless I end up not liking the set I just received, which is doubtful.

Serkin's early LvB is immeasurably better than his later Beethoven. You can sample it on Spotify.

[barney]

Henry, over the years I have written several million words for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, probably at least half a million on music and more than 200 CD reviews, but I never put a review on Amazon. Sorry.

Oops. Well I'm not completely bonkers. A bit of searching on the site and I realize that I was thinking of CMG contributor 'Scott Morrison' who has not been on CMG since 2011. I must have been confused because he writes almost as well as you do. I see that he is still active on amazon.com!
https://www.amazon.com/gp/profile/amzn1 ... tr?ie=UTF8

Oooh! Any offence, not that there ever was any, instantly dissipated by a most handsome compliment. Thank you.