The Beethoven orchestra is not the easiest thing to record at the best of times. On this five-year-old analogue recording of the Emperor, the sound of the VPO is sometimes, by CD standards, rather muzzy. The piano sound, by contrast, is comparatively brilliant and true. Which is a pity when Bohm's steady, rhythmically just direction and the VPO's playing are the necessary humanizing elements, offsetting Pollini's superbly articulated but at times perceptibly Coriolanian reading of the solo piano part.'