Bells in Rachmaninoff

Well… it is now. CBS was there and the recording was released in their VH at Carnegie box, but most of us got to know the performance through Hoeffler’s or Nernoff’s audience tapes.

Yes, the Rach revisions to this sonata are like amputations. For the revised version I like Weissenberg and Ogdon.

For the original version, Cliburn, followed by Kocsis. For hybrids, indeed Horowitz. Is the performance CJ mentions the one with the broken string in the second movement? If so that is the one to hear, though overall in the late 60s he was pretty consistent with his interpretation of this piece. Personally I don’t find the 60s Horowitz bangy at all, whereas his late 70s/1980ish performances of this piece do get very bangy at times. However, his Toronto performance from 77 I think (appeared on M&A and later Palexa, briefly) is probably the least bangy (partly due to the acoustic of the recording) and Horowitz himself spoke highly of this concert.

Others that are interesting to me are Michael Ponte (live, original edition) and Leonid Kuzmin (Horowitz edition), and Joseph Villa (I think he plays the Horowitz edition) as mentioned already. Also, Sultanov gives a pretty exciting reading. Another good entry is Benedetto Lupo (revised) from the Cliburn competition.