Suggestions for Classical Piano "works of merit"

I agree with your assessment of the Kempff recordings. If you've liked his Schumann, you may wish to try his Beethoven, both the sonatas and the concertos with Leitner.

A couple additional suggestions:

Ivan Moravec's recordings of Chopin on the Connossieur Society label. The performances are marvelous and the recording quality is consistently superb. On LP, these were issued as CS 1065, CS 1165, CS 1266, CS 2019, CS 2062, CS 2122.

Also, the Nojima Nomura recordings of Liszt and Ravel on the Reference Recordings label.
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Excellent recommendations, Newbee. I'll add a few more...

Debussy - the Paul Jacobs recording Newbee recommends is very good (originally issued on vinyl as HB73031). To this I would add: Moravec's performances of Debussy's "La Cathedrale engloutie," "Children's Corner Suite" and other pieces on Connoisseuer Society.

Gershwin - if you enjoy Gershwin's music from his Songbook, Malcolm Bolcom on Nonesuch is delightful and very well recorded by Marc Aubort (H71284 for the LP issue).

Liszt - for the Annees de Pelerinage, another excellent set are the performances by Aldo Ciccolini on EMI. I find Ciccolini's performances more characterful than the Berman performances, but both are good.

Schumann - If you're into vinyl, the John Lill recording issued on 2 LPs by Green Room Productions (4000/4001, Tony Faulkner recording engineer) is outstanding sonically, and the performances are very good (Fantasia in c, Faschingsschwank aus Wien, and Kinderszenen).
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Having access to a good library is a great resource, Pscanli. While I was in a transition to a new city recently and without my turntable, I got to sample a lot of recordings/performances new to me by taking advantage of CDs available on loan from the library, and I enjoyed that tremendously. Still find myself buying lots of used and new vinyl though.
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