So much trouble did the instrumentation of Les noces cause Stravinsky that he himself claimed not to know how many versions he began. It seems that the 1917 chamber orchestra scoring of the complete work (here recorded) was followed soon afterwards by one for two cimbaloms, pianola, harmonium and percussion (first two scenes only) and that other scorings were conceived or partially executed both before and after these. The definitive 1923 score came nine years after the first musical sketches.
Both the above-mentioned provisional versions were recorded on CBS by Robert Craft (nla). It is disappointing that the new Hungaroton does not restore the cimbalom/pianola/harmonium scoring to the catalogue, since in many ways this admittedly impractical arrangement is even more striking than the final one for four pianos. Nevertheless the inclusion of the 1917 version will obviously appeal to collectors who missed the Craft issue, and this performance is more powerful, more idiomatic in its Russian accents and better recorded (though not so drastically as to make it a priority for those who do have Craft). For newcomers there are any number of discoveries in store, including woodwind counterpoints entirely absent from the piano version and even some unfamiliar registration of the voices. One curious detail is that the Hungaroton performance gives the bridegroom's final solo to the tenor, where Craft left it with the bass (as in the final version). Clearly the high bass timbre is the 'ideal' solution, though since Anatoli Safiulin misses much of the tenderness of this solo in the 1923 version it actually sounds 'better' with the tenor.
If the 1923 Noces is your sole priority then Bernstein (on DG) is clearly the one to have. The DG recording is more spacious, without the slight woolliness of the Hungaroton, the pianos are closer and more incisive without unbalancing the ensemble, and the soloists more evenly matched, if inevitably a fraction less idiomatic in pronunciation. Hayrabedian's is an attractive account, marred by a woefully flat last bass solo (on Pierre Verany/Conifer). This is coupled with Maurice Ohana's Cantigas, a work I continue to find highly impressive; Bernstein's coupling is the Stravinsky Mass.'