Re: Music that is "lucky"/"unlucky" on disc?

In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Simon Roberts <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:

> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Sol L. Siegel 
> says...
> >
> >[EMAIL PROTECTED]  (MBittkauer8092) writes:
> >
> >>Question: What works have been performed well on disc so
> >> many times that a new person can hardly go wrong...or at least, 
> >>there are numerous ways they could go very "right."  
> >
> >I remember a writer for High Fidelity (or was it Stereo Review?) 
> >claiming that it was next to impossible to go entirely wrong in 
> >the "Trout" Quintet.  I haven't heard enough versions to confirm 
> >this, but if there are any real stinkers out there then we should 
> >be warned.
> 
> There are quite a few po-faced performances which, in a way, "stink" to these
> ears - Smetana/Panenka, a dreadful HIP performance on EMI (I forget who they
> are; Hausmusik?), and numerous others I've forgotten.

I don't think I know the HIP one, but here is one dreadful Trout: 
Eschenbach/Koeckert.  Another, I'm afraid, is Richter/Borodin; too somber by 
far.

I like Smetana/Panenka for the recognizably marvelous caliber of the ensemble 
work. It's true, it could be lighter on its feet, but there is a sense of joy, 
which I think is the vital thing here.

(BTW, I finally had to research "po-faced," your use of which seems to 
coincide with things that I like. I wondered how the apparent sense was 
arrived at from "poor," but it turns out there's conjecture the term really 
derives from the French word for "chamber pot." Ugh. It is, of course, a Brit 
term, but one of sufficiently recent coinage that Merriam-Webster didn't deal 
with it till the 1996 edition. They trace it back to 1934.)

SE.