It is difficult to define what historical recordings are. Before WWII? Mono? By the same token, one can always say, "how new is new?" Digital rather than analogue recordings? Multi-channel SACDs rather than CDs? How about DVD-Audio (as in one Asahina recording)?
All these of course are relative terms. For practical purposes, I'd take those recorded before 1960 as 'historical' as after 1960 you can have stereo (caveat: some stereo recordings before 1960 are extant). However, I'm fully aware that between 1950 and 1960 there were many mono recordings with very good sound quality. But then a line still needs to be drawn. I'm not a purist and this classification is good enough for me. In order to stay in a comfort zone, I'd take all non-historical recordings as 'new', so as not to make things complicated. Of course you can always argue that there are some newer than others, but again I won't bother about that. So far so good.
Then comes an obvious question: why such a distinction? I reckon that sound quality is an important factor in my enjoyment of recorded music. Yes, interpretation -- again I won't go into the argument of whether a conductor should interpret the music written by the composer: that is a real Pandora's box -- is also important, but it should not be an overriding determining factor in the choice of my favourite recording. I'm not against historical recordings, even those issued originally in 78s. In fact my interest in Bruckner's music was nurtured by none other than Furtwängler's records which have never been considered of good sound by modern standards.
In fact, in my shortlists of favourite Bruckner recordings, many conductors of the past era are present, namely Böhm, Jochum, Kabasta, Keilberth, Schuricht and Walter. On the other hand, although I found many recordings by Abendroth, Adler, Knappertsbusch and Rosbaud interesting, for one reason or another, theirs still cannot find their way into the shortlist. Horenstein is a special case in this context, which I'll go back to in future.
Having said that, recordings made before 1940, even with undisputed historical or even historic significance, are of such inferior sound quality that I'm not being honest to myself if I say I choose them as my favourites.
My favorite Bruckner recordings are from the 1930s-interpretation is more important than sound quality for me, but that's just me. From that decade, Klemperer, Ormandy, Toscanini, Hausegger, Bohm, Jochum, Rodzinski, Schuricht. My next favorite period is WW2-with also Furtwangler, Kabasta, Knappertsbusch, G.L. Jochum,Karajan, Walter
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