A Study in Differences of Opinion

I'm listening to two recordings of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Mostly, I'm interested in the second movement right now, Giuoco delle coppie: Allegretto scherzando for the eight bar excerpt at the beginning. I have the RCA Victor recording with Fritz Reiner from 1955, and the Deutsche Grammaphone recording with Pierre Boulez from 1994.

The Boulez recording uses a drum that is slightly lower in pitch and more muffled. The excerpt is played at approximately 84-86 b.p.m., and is a bit less strict to what is on the page. Whoever played the excerpt on this recording probably played more towards the center of the drum (thus, less ringing of the drum) and the player moves their stick towards the edge of the drum during the last 2 bars of the passage. This gives a substantial color change to the drum that is very noticeable when listening with headphones. I'm not certain it is what the composer intended.

The Reiner recording uses a higher tuned drum (probably a M2 to m3 higher than the Boulez recording) and is nearly perfect to the metromone at a more lively 92-93 b.p.m. (after all, Reiner was a stickler on tempo and rhythm). The decrescendo is performed without a noticeable move to the edge of the drum. However, there's quite a bit of ring, so I assume the percussionsist who executed it on this recording (Harry Brabec?) probably played halfway between the center and edge of the drum. Both players play the except with two sticks (one for the accented notes, and another for the unaccented notes).

I applaud both performances as they are both precise and well planned. My goal here was to show that there can be two different opinions on how to execute a passage. Take a listen sometime and see what you hear.