Ruth, the first one, definitely. The Barber and the Bernstein both knock spots off the Katchaturian, even though I'd like to see Thibaudet play.

Hmm, well I wouldn't choose either, it's the final item in each which puts me orff! 

    Ruth,  I'm with Andy D.    I'd head in a different direction without using an expletive phrase!

At the same time, it can be stimulating to hear another interpretation within a few days of each other but 'Carmina Burana' and its endless repetition on commercials when you were but a toddler!

Fortunately I did not have a TV when I was a toddler, and almost all my exposure to CB has been in the context of "hearing it properly"

Ha, Bryn, yes, I suppose CB is all about impropriety

Incidentally, besides my immediate question, I really DO wonder why there seems to be no means of mutual consultation between different ensembles/venues as to who is doing which concerts and when.

Date-on-date clashes are of course the worst, and I've come across some really quite ludicrous ones where a high proportion of the audience must have been wishing they could be in two places at once.

The worst example I've EVER come across was two bel-canto opera concerts in the SAME arts complex on the SAME night: Juan Diego Florez in recital at the Royal Festival Hall, while Chelsea Opera Group were doing Anna Bolena next door at the QEH.  It was so frustrating.  There were groups of audience members outside the South Bank complex comparing notes after the concerts were over.

Almost as bad was when I felt I simply couldn't miss the Kirov's concert of "The Nose" at the Barbican, which means I STILL haven't seen Puccini's "Le villi" which was being performed by Chelsea Opera Group that night (the only Puccini opera missing from my experience) and am not expecting to have aother opportunity to see any time soon.

And as for Britten... in a few weeks GOT are at Sadler's Wells doing Albert Herring, the City of London Sinfonia are doing Owen Wingrave at Cadogan Hall, and the LSO are doing Billy Budd at the Barbican.  Unless you happen to be free on the Sunday evening, it is not physically possible to get to all three  (Last year I had to miss a Chelsea Opera Group Idomeneo - no great loss, IMHO - because Opera North and the Philharmonia chose to give two performances each of "Peter Grimes" and "Death in Venice" on the same two nights!)

There's a Brahms Requiem recording about which I'd say the same - Popp's the only soprano I've ever heard who doesn't breathe in the middle of her opening phrase!

From my experience of planning concerts (not on the scale of a large orchestra admittedly), there are so many factors to consider that it's extremely difficult to avoid clashes of some sort - it depends on individual planners talking to each other.

One of the worst examples to be avoided is that (some) chamber musicians like to play the same programme more than once in the same local area, if they, or their agent, can get away with it. They get paid for each concert, don't have to travel, and they only have to rehearse one programme. Audiences at each venue are inevitably smaller than they would have been with only one performance in the area. Sometimes they might vary part of the programme, but all the above still applies, though to a lesser extent.