Steve Schwartz writes:

>Every little nuance a performer puts in not already part of the score,
>every micro push and retard of tempo - everything that makes music alive,
>in short - goes against the doctrine of faithfulness if these expressive
>devices don't appear in the score

No, because you can't be faithful (or unfaithful) to something that
isn't there.  You can, I suppose, presume that the composer was lazy or
incompetent in failing to notate every nuance, but it is convention that
what's not spelled out is open to interpretation; indeed, much that *is*
spelled out is understood to be open to interpretation.  But, again by
convention, there are some things that, once spelled out, are assumed to
be unalterable -- the (relative) pitches of the notes, the ordering of
the notes, the ordering of the measures.  Some things are subject to
interpretation withing reasonable bounds -- tempo and dynamics.  Gross
distortions of these are generally recognized as such.

Once more with feeling -- we are not saying you can't change what the
composer wrote.  Of course you can.  But you can't change it, unless the
composer has explicitly told you to or allowed you to (e.g., aleatoric
music), and claim it is the composer's work.  It has now been edited, and
you are the editor.  Maybe the edited version is better (whatever that
means), maybe it's worse.  But it is certainly different, maybe not what
the composer "intended", but certainly from what the composer wrote.

So, you don't want to take repeats, don't take them.  Fine.  But don't
say this is better because you know what the composer "really" meant.

len.