Word!

No, not the (justly ubiquitous) Microsoft word processor, but an assertion of complete agreement; in this case with the following by San Francisco Chronicle music critic and blogger Joshua Kosman of On A Pacific Aisle:

I know there's a line of thought out there that says that [notated] repeats, and Schubert's repeats in particular, are kinda sorta optional. [...] But I'm not buying. What's the thinking, that we're all busy people with someplace else to get to? Wouldn't the default position be to, y'know, play what the composer wrote? [...]

Because look, the narrative in a traditional sonata-form movement isn't "Here's some music, now we'll mess it around, now it all comes out nice in the tonic." It's "Here's some music — wait, you sure you've got it fixed in your mind? OK, now we'll mess it around, etc." Skipping the exposition repeat jettisons a structurally essential part of that narrative. It's like a card trick in which the magician doesn't bother to make certain everyone sees the card that's been drawn.

Word! (And we caution those who might be reckless enough to think of pointing to our prior objection to the taking of the notated repeats in Bach’s Goldberg Variations to think twice before charging us with inconsistency.)

RTWT here.