Chopin Fantasie Impromptu, Opus 66

Jax2, You've got me - I don't have Pletnevs Carnegie appearance. :-( I just put it on my shopping list at Amazon.
Now something for you IF you like obscure music. Since you like Pletnev, and you love good recordings, if you are up to some obscure, small scale Tchaikovsky (no cannons, no barnstorming theatrics, no tears, no drama what so ever, so unlike PIT) and you got the money to burn, Tchaikovsky's 18 Pieces Op72. Another live performance on DG recorded in 2005. I have one other recording of it and Pletnev's blows it away. The recording has both great clarity and a sense of depth. No fuzz or tizz in the highs, nor booming bass registers either. (I'm hoping the Carnegie Hall performance you have recommended is at least as good). But don't blame me if you it finding boring. It's impossible to know what others might enjoy, or not. :-)

PS I'd add that the Volodos is an excellent recording with great immediacy and presence (wonderful performance too), which is primarily what I felt is lacking in the dual-layer Hewitt (not "Hewlett", Newbee - if there is a Hewlett recording then we're talking about a different artist :-)

The Pletnev CD is a very spirited and energetic live performance. It does not have the sonic immediacy of the Volodos but it is a powerful performance, and a great live recording (IMO of course). It's on Deutsche Grammophon.

Oh, jez, I try to be nice to the guy and he turns out to be a pedantic. Go figure! :-)

OK, now I'm really perplexed!!!! So I'm burning the CD copies for Newbee this morning and use a direct-copy software (one disc in one drive copied to one in another). I just went to play the burned copy in my system to confirm that it played fine before sending it out, and to my amazement not only does it play fine, but it sounds superior to the SACD, and does not require nearly as much gain (I'd say it's a good 5db higher in gain overall). I put in the original SACD and sure enough, the sound was more distant and required going from 11 o'clock to 2 o'clock on my pre to get a similar volume to the copied version!!! WTF! Now this does NOT explain why on my friend's system, which as far as I know is a CD-only player, the disc had a similar sound and similar issue with gain as it does on my own SACD player!!!! The disc had to have been playing its CD layer on his system, yet it required a very high amount of attenuation from his pre too. Somebody give me a clue here!!! This is VERY ODD!

I've just started a new thread that will be up as soon as the moderator approves it. I think this issue is worthy of a thread of its own at this point.

Rubenstein for sure