Jan Templiner replies to my rhetorical question:

>>Curious that no one thinks it's meaningful to ask "what's the best
>>picture of Michaelangelo's David?".  Why is music any different?
>
>Because music is "happening" whereas a painting just "is".

Well, Michaelangelo's David is a sculture, not a painting, and the analogy
hinges on the three dimensionality of sculpture and the two dimensionality
of a photograph.

Flawed as this analogy is (and it is, I admit, quite flawed), I would
argue that the fact that music takes place over time is irrelevant.
Unless you subscribe to the notion that there is a single "perfect",
for all time, interpretation of the notes of the score, the idea that
a recording of one performance could play that role, or even aspire to
that role, is as meaningful as assuming that there is some single ideal
perspective from which a sculpture could be photographed.

len.