Recorded 3.05.50 (1-3); 25.07.51 (8-9); 9.09.58 (4 -7); 26.06.58 (10-11) by James Leonard Volume 8 of Vista Vera's The Legacy of Maria Yudina series joins four of the great Soviet pianist's performances of Beethoven's sonatas: the early but weighty C minor Opus 10/1, the A flat major Opus 26, the mature but slight F major Opus 54, and the late but transcendent C minor Opus 111. Recorded between 1950 and 1958 in clear but exceedingly harsh monaural sound, these performances present Yudina at her most characteristic -- that is to say, idiosyncratic. While still recognizably the notes Beethoven wrote, Yudina was more than willing to bend a line, distend a tempo, distort a rhythm, or exaggerate a dynamic if she thought it would help make her point. For her fans -- and that included virtually every music lover in the USSR -- Yudina's point -- that Beethoven's music was the aesthetic testament of a supremely enlightened soul -- justified her playing, sometimes eccentric though it might be. While listeners who didn't grow up in the USSR might initially find her approach too much, those who can surrender their preconceptions and go with Yudina's flow may find her rapture contagious.