I like the Arrau Chopin recordings as well, and just found them all on LP not long ago. One of my very favorite pianists who I see no one has mentioned yet on this thread is Alicia deLarrocha. Wonderful Spanish pianist who had a very long career, in fact was still playing as recently as three or four years ago. Made lots of wonderful recordings of a very wide variety of rep.
My other very favorite would be Alfred Brendel. Pretty much anything by him is guaranteed to be a wonderful musical experience as well. I wish I could find a complete set of his early recordings of the Beethoven piano works on LP, but that's very hard to come by, especially for a decent price.
My other very favorite would be Alfred Brendel. Pretty much anything by him is guaranteed to be a wonderful musical experience as well. I wish I could find a complete set of his early recordings of the Beethoven piano works on LP, but that's very hard to come by, especially for a decent price.