Listening to Bernstein/Entremont do Bartok - excellent performances undone by perhaps the worst producing/engineering job I've ever heard on a Columbia album. And who do we have to thank for that? Why, the ego-ridden then-neophyte producer named Thomas Z. Shepard - he'd go on to become a cast album producer but should never have been allowed near a classical album. Where was the great John McClure, one wonders? The first movement has to be heard to be believed - the balances are so wacky it's almost comical. The band sounds like it's in another room and the piano, you know, the focal instrument in a piano concerto, sounds like it's in a closet somewhere. Not Sony's fault as there would be nothing to do with such a botched recording job.
