On multiple performances of the same classical music works

I have been listening to classical music for most of my life. I have also been reading music review magazines like Gramophone, Fanfare, and Americal Record Guide for the last 35 years.

As is well known, it is permissible for the same artists and conductors to record the same works several times in their career. I have often wondered whether over time performances have remained the same, changed in a predictable fashion, or differed from each other in a random fashion. I have especially been interested in the reviews about such occurences. The following few paragraphs have been buried in one of my earlier posts, but I thought I would make it more accessible here.

I have found that the reviewers had a field day comparing, say, early, middle, and late Karajan. Or shall I add intermediate Karajan (he had a habit or recording the same work quite a few times)? Or Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in Schubert songs, which he recorded many times? Or Brendel in Beethoven sonatas? The critic often finds great and significant differences in, say, the second movement subsidiary theme which is now significantly slower, or the transitional 3-bar motif, where in the remake the second clarinets are allowed to shine. Indeed they do. And the artist now, alleluia, takes the second movement exposition repeat (now there is a Ph.D. industry for you!). Of course, differences are inevitable. Somewhat more questionable whether we are any closer to the Platonic essence of the work.Given the ephemeral nature of our audial memory, a cynic might even wonder that if the above critic, unbeknownst to him, were to listen to the identical record twice on different days would he not find significant differences in the two performances, attributing them to significant new interpretive insights. It is similarly questionable whether the same artist can reproduce the same performance twice in a row. Different takes of Mengelberg, or Toscanini, indicate that this is by no means the case: the performances vary. I have a CD of Josef Hofmann's in which he plays the same Chopin Waltz four times in a row. Each is different.

A devilish thought occurs: we need not wait seven years for the artists to record the same piece, we can have them record the same piece five times in five days. Keep four in the can and issue them in periodic intervals. They will be different. This suggestion, of course, is in jest, but only partly, to allow me to state my possibly controversial thesis. It is that periodic remakes and pirated performances of an artist even over a span of several decades seldom show a recognizable arc toward a deeper understanding of a composition, or even a clear movement toward a different interpretive pole. The different performances are rather chance variations on an innate artistic mean, owing to the momentary circumstances of different venues, orchestras, personal and historical events, and aging. Even such a thoughtful conductor as Furtwängler, who spent a lifetime pursuing the Beethovenian truth, evinced no clear interpretive movement in his 10 or so published performances of Beethoven's Choral Symphony or in others. Similarly, Schnabel's three performances of the Emperor Concerto bear a constant creative imprint that is quite different from Arrau's several remakes. Heifetz' constancy of performances is well known, but if one looks at Szigeti's three Beethoven violin concerto performances, or his several available Bach unaccompanied pieces over decades, one cannot espy a clear movement, except the inevitably effects of Father Time. If this is how it goes with the Olympians, are today's mortals any different? More to the point: can the average, non-specialist record collector keep up? I fear not. Does he care? I think not.