Piano Forum

So, I've been into the 4th movt of Chopin's 2nd sonata lately, the whole weirdness of it, the power in its ending, and I've listened to a few different recordings, all not much different from each other, then I came acorss Horowitz performing at the White House:



and I thought, wow, that was really good, there's just something about it where you know the guy playing it has something going on the other pianists don't, and it was my favorite version until I came across Cziffra playing it, thus:



Now, I feel the Cziffra recording is the best I've heard, there's just this whole other dimension to it, but this seems to be because of the liberties he's taken with it.  If I'm not mistaken (I can't get onto sheetmusicarchives to check it out for some reason) there are no pedal marks and barely any tempo or volume changes as written..  And if all these other pianists are sticking to the script, their recordings can only be so much...  If Cziffra goes about adding notes and creating phrases with the pedal, is it still really what Chopin intended?  Or is this what makes a great performer?