Compared to the neat way American record companies have produced Mozart symphonies and Beethoven quartets in a series of performances by the recognized authorities in those fields, the treatment of Romantic piano music has been little short of chaotic. In this extraordinarily rich and varied field, there has been no planning, no skillful choice of works to be recorded, and little utilization of the pianists fit to do the job.

Chopin's etudes provide a lamentable example. This set of 24 studies, taken as a whole, forms one of the great milestones in the history of music, yet the only American recording is a two-volume Columbia set which was entrusted to Edward Kilenyi, a young virtuoso who has proven himself utterly incapable of fulfilling such a responsibility.

Kilenyi's interpretation shows, in every measure, a consistent lack of either feeling for Romantic music or comprehension of Chopin's ideas. The energetic and heroic studies are methodically hammered at, and the brilliant or ethereal ones are transformed into specimens of picayune flippancy. To top it all off, he has used an edition which, in several cases, contains notes that are simply wrong.

If this were a unique case, it might be fobbed off as some sort of mistake, but it is typical of the utter confusion that exists in American recordings of Romantic piano music.

Victor commendably began to provide Rubinstein performances of Chopin, but, so far, the emphasis has been on multi-volume sets of lesser works, (mazurkas and nocturnes), while the great ballades and etudes, for example, have been left in the cold. Columbia, meanwhile, surrendered most of what little Chopin it decided to record to the mercy of Mr. Kilenyi. The massacre of the etudes is typical of the result. Not that there aren't any good interpreters of Chopin. What few records were made by the late greats Friedman and Rosenthal have not been reissued; Brailowsky has made few records for either Victor or Columbia, although he has been under contract to both; a rising genius, Din Lipatti has started on the works of Chopin for English Columbia but has not appeared in the U.S. yet.

The Schumann situation is even worse. Kilenyi and Cortot slaughter the etudes symphoniques and Myra Hess distorts the Carnaval, while the toccata, Kreisleriana, and sonatas exist only in ancient and unavailable Victor sets. The other piano works are mostly unrecorded. Liszi and Franck are brutally manhandled by everyone but Petri and Horowitz. Here Louis Kentner typifies the wasted talent: known in America for a few excellent Mozart recordings, Kentner himself considers Liszi his piece do resistance.

All this is proof of a painfully evident point: in the extremely important field of Romantic piano music, the careful planning that went into the production of many classical recordings has vanished. Incompetent pianists mess up important works while competent ones are idle, and great music remains unrecorded while inconsequential works fill every store shelf.