"Even fidelity to the score is a matter of opinion - one person's interpretation of "allegro" might be very different from another...." (Nick Barnard)
Well, no, it's not actually, it's a matter of experience and taste, so it's a matter of informed rather than personal opinion. I would expect an interpreter to be historically and musically aware enough to be able to distinguish how such a term might have differed in interpretation in different periods. You don't have to be fluent in Italian to know that the word "Allegro" refers to mood rather than speed.
Speaking of scores, there is also the issue of how accurate the score that a performer uses is. Apparently Klemperer used a very old edition of Mozart's Symphony no 29 in which the alla breve sign of the first movement appeared as common time signature and conducted it at a rather leaden four in a bar pace rather than in two.
The "Alla breve" indication (which appears frequently in classical scores right up to Schubert's time) is open to different interpretations. The text-book answer nowadays is "Two in a bar" but another, less common, view is that it is meant to indicate the structure over larger stretches of the music. It's the view I take (according to the context ! ) and why I can't wholeheartedly accept Bruno Walter's or Barbirolli's interpretation of the final movement of the "Jupiter" symphony....but would that worry anybody seeking a recommendation of a recording to add to their own personal library ?...probably not.
Of course, fidelity to the score or the score's fidelity to the composer's autograph doesn't necessarily (or even often) equate with a fine performance. I get far more pleasure from Beecham's Haydn recordings than many more modern historically-informed ones.
I can't comment on this particular controversy as I no longer buy issues of standard works as I've not enough breath in my body to be able to listen to all that I've acquired over the years even if I lived till I'm 90 started now and slept for only four hours a day.
I do know that one record I bought in the 1960s -Pennario and Previn performing Rachmaninov concertos - still gives me pleasure when I play it today even though the expert who wrote a review in the Gramophone of it dismissed it as rather poor. So personally I tend to rely on the judgement of my own ears nowadays. If I still intended to buy records I would be more appreciative of articles that listed the worst records (those that showed obvious faults in recording, performance standards etc.,) so that I knew what NOT to go for .
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