1) this doesn't mean the quality of the performance is irrelevant to appreciating the recording, and
2) the instant there is a second recording of a rare work some assessment of the performance becomes vital for the sake of comparison.
I'd like to comment on a review and am very interested in what other readers think about my musings. The review concerned is the one by Jonathan Woolf on Philp Glass' 9th symphony, on http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2012/Oct12/Glass_sy9_OMM0081.htm .This review exhibits a trait I've noticed in some other reviews on MWI and elsewhere: the reviewer shares his or her thoughts about the recorded work(s), but remains completely silent about the quality of the performance. I'm very interested in both: I want to know what the reviewer thinks about the works concerned, read about some of the history of and the context in which they were composed, etcetera, but I still read a review primarily to hear how the reviewer judges the quality of the performance. As far as I am concerned, the reviewer's thoughts about the quality of the performance of the work(s) in question are more important than what she or he wants to tell me about the work(s) per se, though I always enjoy reading those observations as well, and often learn something new from them. So, what do other readers of these pages think?
Regards, Jaap.
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