It is good idea that for this CD version DG have included a sonata as well as the concerto, increasing the total playing time from 34 minutes to 52. I hope all the companies will register the need not to provide short measure in this more expensive medium. Both recordings are from analogue originals, and the tutti in the concerto demonstrates how the DG engineers have coped very well with the ample reverberation of the Musikvereinsaal in Vienna. when the piano enters the brisk rising scale then rather shocks the ear with its closeness and an almost nasal quality in the lower register. One quickly adjusts to the piano sound, which is not of the finest but still very acceptable, and the initial shock has as much to do with the fierceness of the performance which RO noted in his original review. It is, as he says, an unsmiling interpretation, taut, hardly spontaneous-sounding, but Beethoven in C minor can always justify a heroic reading like this, and Bohm's accompaniment is a delight.
There is a hint of hardness too in the sonata, and that also has something to do with the recording quality. As JOC said in her original review purity is the keynote rather than mystery or meditation. On the concerto my own preference would be for the new issue rather than the Serkin (Telarc/Conifer), but other CD contenders are, I understand, due very shortly.'