To make matters worse on Friday, many musical decisions seemed calculated to keep the performance smaller than life.

One could quibble with some of Mr. Wilson's dramatic choices, but his musical decisions serve the score well.

Mercury's people left musical decisions to the musicians and bent their own energies toward projecting an undiluted image of the performance.

Some of his musical decisions occasionally seemed made for technical reasons.

But, as a consequence, musical decisions may be made by people with little or no real musical knowledge, sometimes without proper consultation.

It may be that the easiest aspect of the tour arrangements were the musical decisions.

But he lacked a collaborator who, in the great tradition of opera, could have challenged his musical decisions.

He had full control over the arrangements and musical decisions and did most overdubs.

Then there are those times when a guest hands a band leader the opportunity to redeem himself for a lackluster musical decision.

In Russia, his experience is that the music director has all the authority to make musical decisions.