I have not heard the recording that Frederik is talking about (well, actually I think someone played it for me when I was a teenager. . .oh boy, about 30 years ago!) I do have the recording of Marcel Dupre playing it at St. Sulpice. I find this recording interesting because Dupre studied these symphonies with Widor himself, and his approach to this piece is more conservative than some of his other playing. It seems to me that Dupre was one of the first to play French music "too fast," going with the trend of many Americans to play this music WAYYYYYYY too fast, completely missing the music in favor of showing off technical prowess. Dupre did not seem (from what I understand and have heard) to go to quite the same extreme, but he did seem to be a bit more flashy than other French organists. Widor was very much on the conservative side, and emphasized over and over that the Toccata from the 5th should not be played too fast, and perhaps Dupre heeded his teacher when playing his pieces. I can't say I'm any kind of Dupre expert, so I may have this wrong, but this is how I understand it right now.
As to the quality of performance idea which Frederik brought up, my own opinion is that a good performance strikes a balance between technical perfection and musical expression. Different people put different emphasis on these two aspects. I, myself, put major importance on musical expression and can tolerate some note slips. Others (and of course I disagree with this completely, but that's me) will tolerate some musical "boringness" as long as the notes are completely accurate. My opinion is that modern performance has moved too much in the direction of overemphasizing note perfection, and I believe this is because of the recording industry. Nowadays we hear too many recordings and not enough live performances. Recordings are almost always edited, producing an unnaturally perfect performance, but often lacking in musical continuity. Only someone who has actually recorded can appreciate the pressure involved and how that can obliterate musical flexibility. There is also the problem that a musical nuance might sound good in a particular performance, but way overdone when you listen to a recording of that actual performance. So recordings need to be kind of middle-of-the-road in terms of musical nuance, or they tend to get on your nerves with repeated listenings. But in real performance, a good performer is sensitive to a given audience and will do things he might not do on a recording. This, as well as the unnatural perfection of recordings, puts too much pressure on performers to sacrifice musicality in favor of note perfection, in my opinion. I listen to old recordings of musicians from earlier in the 20th century and I hear more mistakes, but often I hear exquisite musicianship and communication that is sorely lacking in modern performances.
I think we all need to ask ourselves what is the real purpose of performance, anyhow! Is it to communicate and move the audience, or is it to show off and wow the audience with superhuman, computerlike perfection? Which of these is about benefitting others, and which seems to focus more on drawing adulation from the audience?
) and yet the structure and thematical development (as you mention) is fine art.
