Go to Spotify or a similar music-streaming service, choose a standard work of the classical repertoire and then compare the performances. Try a violin concerto, for example, and just listen to the first 10 seconds. Make up your own mind which one is best. What I've found is that many of these recordings - especially the ones made in the last 50 years - sound pretty much alike. Why keep on recording a work if you have nothing new to say? Why perform a work without trying to bringing a creative dramatic tension to it? And I mean to the music itself - not by means of an accompanying display of installation art or through wearing risque clothing and makeup. Legato, legato, legato and loud - that's how string playing has developed. The Budapest String Quartet played so much more quietly than the Emerson Quartet and added to the notes in an intelligent way. And I mean added. There's rarely anything compelling about just playing the notes and following the composer's directions.