Mention the late Sviatoslav Richter, and awe will most likely figure in the description of anyone who heard him. Yet back in 1961, Richter was still a largely unknown quantity in the West, his reputation shrouded in mystique. These live recordings, from the London Proms that year, can only have surpassed expectations. It is not just that Richter meets the outsize demands of Liszt's piano writing head on; his scintillating playing, combined with attention to detail and an overreaching grasp of the concerto's freeform structures, give the music a poetic depth it might not otherwise possess. Such is the case with the Chopin: so easy to trivialise in performance, the "Andante spianato" has a breathtaking purity and inwardness; small wonder you could hear a pin drop in a no doubt packed Royal Albert Hall. Richter was always a pianist to use his technique to musical effect, but when the work in question calls for pyrotechnics, he rises to the challenge irresistibly. The tension at the close of the Hungarian Fantasia, with Kondrashin and the LSO just keeping pace, is proof that the audience is living every moment: now, allowing for dated but realistic sound, so can you. --Richard Whitehouse