Going beyond the page

Sometimes, it's difficult to articulate why one interpretation of a piece moves you more than another.  More often than not, though, I think a moving rendition of any work goes beyond technical perfection and allows the music to breathe.  There's a Boston Symphony Orchestra performance of Maurice Ravel's "Mother Goose Suite," conducted by Serge Koussevitzky, that I listen to more often than other versions.  The sound quality of the old recording is somewhat wobbly, and yet, I keep going back to it.  Mainly, it's because there are two moments in the fourth movement that the orchestra pulls off better than any other I've heard.  There are unwritten pauses and a feeling behind the music that go beyond the notes in the score.  There's a version by another orchestra I've heard that has superior recording quality, and the interpretation is good.  Still, when those two moments come up, the music doesn't breathe.  The same notes are played but in a more rigid, academic way--and that makes all the difference.  Essentially, it's the difference between playing notes and playing music.