Interesting notes about Carmina Burana, and the Jochum recording in particular.
When I was just out of high school, the Ormandy recording was my introduction to the piece (and to Orff), and its beauty and musicality will always hold a top place for me. For years I'd try others and just not be attracted to them for various reasons. A few years later while in college I bought the Jochum LP, mainly because I'd been taken with Deutsche Grammophon recordings, but I found it disappointing, too. I don't recall what other ones I may have sampled back then, but there weren't very many at the time.
I eventually let that Jochum recording go, and many years later the Robert Shaw/Atlanta one on Telarc became my new favorite, right up there with Ormandy's. In spite of any differences in concept, I thought Shaw was Ormandy's equal in his handling of the piece, and the playing and singing were beautiful. So now I had two go-to's whenever I needed my fix.
Over the intervening years I tried the Stokowski, which I found very dull- or weird-sounding on the LP, and Previn's which I found simply dull, musically, even though it was very well recorded. In the 1980s Levine recorded it with Chicago and his tempos and precision were refreshing to these ears. And I still loved me my Ormandy and Shaw. I eventually acquired the Stokowski on CD which was much more listenable and revealing than the copy I'd had on vinyl, so it, too, happily joined the ranks.
And then... and then... this was just a year or two ago — I forget where I was reading about it, but I came across someone raving about the Jochum recording. Whatever they said made me think it was the right time to give it a listen after so many decades, and: Wow! I thought it was excellent, and couldn't for the life of me reconstruct why I'd rejected it or found it dull or lacking back in the day. I do love it when something comes back around like that.
