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]>