Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 2 / Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 23
Richter was one of the those great virtuoso egomaniac genius types who was so  insecure that he practiced for something like 10 hours a day, even before a scheduled  performance. But it wasn't just getting the notes right that he was after. He was looking for the  way to somehow get an entire work "into his hands," and trying to figure out the relationships  between all of its different parts. That's why his performances--even the very slow one--have  such an inevitable sounding organic unity. This performance isn't one of the very slow ones, but it  does have that sense of urgency and spontaneity, as though Richter and Leinsdorf were  composing as they play. It's one of the great recordings.--David Hurwitz