QUOTE(YetAnotherPianist @ Feb 3 2006, 07:30 PM)

Which do you prefer, Sarah?

I like them both... they're so different I am not sure I could say "this one's better" or even "I like this one best"...
P & Z have that gorgeous lush sound going on with the melodies winding sinuously round each other: quite sublime.... rich and lush and sink-your-teeth-into-able... Barenboim conducting them, can only think that it shows

M & P have a thinner baroque sound with very sparse vibrato, and almost harsh in places...towards the end of the movement loads and loads of ornaments... I especially liked a little run I heard going up to one of the 1st violin high entries, which is totally not in the music but sounded great! And the tendency to lean on some of the semis, I think usually the 4th one in each run - like that a lot. And although I can't quite work it out which one of them it is (if I had the music file on screen it would become obvious) but one of them is playing some of the underlying quavers in one part quite detached - where they have quavers passing back and forth between the two parts - which I like. Loads of detail, maybe sometimes too much! Occasionally (as with those quaver bits) they could do with agreeing a bit more on interpretation...!
For authenticity and detail, M & P obviously, but for overall "ooooh" factor I think the less authentic version pips it and is more cohesive. So yeah. I like them both but they're very different. I think the M & P one sounds like they had a lot of fun doing it

but maybe it almost suffers a little as a recording because of that. Bet it was fun to do/watch first hand though. P & Z play with more seriousness.... gravity.