Tony Duggan wrote:

>You want to own a recording of a particular piece of music.  _All_ the
>recordings available of that work delete _all_ the repeats.  Do you go
>ahead and buy one of them, or do you do without?
>
>You want to own a recording of a particular piece of music.  All the
>recordings _except one_ delete all the repeats, but the entire range
>of critical opinion is agreed that the one recording that includes the
>repeat is a travesty of the work in every other instance - sound, playing,
>interpretation, recording.  Do you go ahead and buy the turkey? Do you buy
>one of the others without the repeats? Or do you do without?

You exercise your own musical judgment.  Repeats are somewhat important
as far as structure goes.  But unless you have a big thing about repeats,
it is my opinion that there are many other aspects of a performance that
are more important.  It was many years before I found a recording of the
Eroica, or the Brahms 2nd, or the Beethoven 7th, that had a repeat.
Monteux was the guy for the Brahms, Bernstein for the Eroica, and Kleiber
the 7th.

I also have a video of Kleiber, and on the video he doesn't take the
repeat.  I also have several of Toscanini's 4th -- once (1939) with repeat,
another (1950s) sans repeat.  And the first 78s I had of the 5th (also
Toscanini) did not have a repeat.

But for myself, if a performance grabs me and I become swept up in the
music, at that point I no longer care about such esoterica.

Bill S