Bob Draper said, with regard to my recommendation of Rachmaninoff's recordings of his own works: >It is always fascinating to listen to a composer's own version of their >works. I loved the Stravinsky recording I mentioned before. > >This is particularly interesting in the context of statements by some >members of this group about a music score being an incomplete art form. >If this is so then is a composer's version of their work the definitive >article? In Rachmaninoff's case, I'd say that his performances of his own works are as great and meaningful as they are because of his prowess as an interpretor, not necessarily because he was the composer. His playing could have the same sort of revelatory effect in Beethoven, Liszt and Schumann in piano music (listen to his 'Carnaval' - again the extraordinary vividness of expression and the formal unity), and in Tchaikovsky and Mozart in symphonic music. Felix Delbruck [log in to unmask]