Although I am almost at the point of automatically deleting postings
regarding repeats I want to remind listers who have been citing various
performers who observed repeats in their recordings that many times these
repetitions were created in the editing room and not completely in the
studio.  I wish I could cite a few references but I know have heard and
read about recordings where a certain technical mishap (a cracked note
or missed entrance) occurs in a recording in both statements of the
exposition, thus suggesting the editor was left to observe the repeat
using the once recorded music twice.

I do distinctly remember an LP I bought a number of years ago of Fritz
Reiner and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performing Beethoven's Symphony
No. 7.  Reiner rarely took repeats and did not observe the first movement
repeat in this work.  However, I picked up a British import on some RCA
budget label where the British recording editors were able to make the
repeat since the work does not have first or second endings, but rather
two bars of rest at the end of the exposition.  Under careful supervision
of someone who knew the pace of the movement the engineers were able to
dub in a second statement of the entire exposition which the conductor
had originally not done.

Is this wizardry faithful observation of repetition signs?  I think not.

Robert Palmer