Here I am back again.  The newbie to this list.  I'm thoroughly enjoing
the vast range of comments!  I could never in a zillion years find such
great comments all assembled in one "room" so to speak.

Regarding Richard Tsuyuki's, Tuesday June 12th comment on liking the
first performance best, I certainly agree with your comments, Richard.
For instance, there is nothing like the Bernstein/NY Philharmonic version
of Diamond's Fourth Symphony for me.  It might be because it was the only
performance of the work for many years.  I like the dreamy Bernstein
rendition.  The same thing goes for Randall Thompson's Second Symphony by
Bernstein.  Again, the only version for a very long time.  Nothing new cuts
it for me.

But there are exceptions.  Here's a close tie, choosing opposite versions.
Taking something very familiar as an example, when I had the luxury of
choosing a version of Ravel's "La Valse" for airplay at a classical radio
station I worked for; I reveled (pun) at listening one evening to a dozen
recordings.  Astonishingly, they varied considerably in length.  That
mattered because I had to fill an hour of music -- less station IDs, time
& temperature, intros/extros, and commercials.

I settled on a shorter version of "La Valse" with a tightly-miced sound,
which to this day is my favorite.  Although a much longer version that
sounded as if it were miced farther away is a very close choice as my
all-time second favorite.  The acoustics were quite the opposite of the
shorter version that really added a very ghostly dimension to the work.

"Jim Stokes" <[log in to unmask]>