music you cant live without

Tubegroover, I'm going to have to check out the Pratt Rachmaninoff, thanks. My favorite interpretation of that piece has been the unusual Richter one on DG from the 60s, but the sonics are such that you have a gigantic piano stretching across the soundstage, little bass and wiry strings--typical DG. The one thing that I cannot yet find in any of the recordings of Rachmaninoff 2 and 3, and I've heard a lot of them, is the incredible power of the pianist that you hear in concert (last year I heard the 3rd played by Toradze with the NJSO, and I'll swear he almost moved that piano off the stage at times!). Argerich has the fire in her live recording, but not quite that power in the lower registers on the recording which I know she has live. Let me know if you've found one that has it--maybe it's just one of those things that cannot be conveyed, even by a good system and recording.

Re Argerich. Most of her recordings are for DG and their 'Tonemeisters' usually roll off the lower registers in their recordings.

Hey Shubertmaniac!! Who is your favorite keyboard person on the D959 and D960?
Yo Yo Ma outstanding but he's not quite Janos Starker on the inner emotion side

Grateful Dead, Grateful Dead, Grateful Dead!

Frap:Don't forget D958, the first sonata in his trio of piano sonatas. Alfred Brendl. The reason being in my distant
past I was a very poor undergrad. I could only afford the el
cheapo vinyl like the Vox label. I got hooked on Schubert
very early and the only thing I could afford was Brendl's
versions of Schubert's piano music. So I played that stuff
over and over and really got so atuned to his playing that
listening to other artists recordings did not seem quite
right, even though other artists interpretation might prove
to be correct or to other listeners more moving. Oh well.