Legendary performances in absolutely stunning sound! You wouldn’t turn to these two works for musical content I imagine, but with Richter and Kondrashin they’re such totally enthralling experiences of a purely sonic kind that they stand up gloriously in their own right. Exciting visceral playing of the highest order from all involved: Richter wholly engrossed in the dazzling physical fireworks of his solo part while imbuing the more lyrical phrases with the poetic abandon that was so uniquely his own (the week before, also in London, he had played two Prokofiev sonatas and Debussy in recital), and Kondrashin amplifying the excitement with the London Symphony Orchestra as they try to keep up with their mercurial soloist. Since sound is everything here (as far as I am concerned), this absolutely superlative REDUX transfer from HDTT (far superior to Philips’s own latest CD edition, 446 002) puts you as-it-were right back there in the hall where Mercury taped these performances in 1961 but sounds as though it all took place only yesterday. SPECTACULAR!

This is one of the all-time great performances in lovely sound. A must for any fan of Liszt.