How do others feel about resurrecting pieces that we played well in the past, but which have slipped somewhat? Is there anything to be gained from this, technically? Or would it be better to learn something new for each public performance - will old things start to sound stale inevitably? Or do we reach new depths each time we resurrect something? Personally I find the latter to be the case, but I'd be interested to hear what others think. (I don't mean the piece that we're next going to be playing at the the Albert Hall, by the way - I'm talking about small recitals!)

I feel that the latter is true as well. I find that whenever I pick up old pieces again, I can notice things (hidden melodies, and such) that I never noticed before.

I'm only a beginner so my old pieces are not very old - but when I go back to them they are like old friends with always a new twist to find

I like that description - yes - I think they are like old friends......I think it's good to go back and resurrect old pieces as well as playing new. For a recital in 2004 I played a couple of pieces I'd last performed in 1984.....!! And one of the encores was a piece I'd played in a 2001 concert..... And if I do another recital (none planned at the moment but I'm working on a programme) again one of the encores will be a piece I played for the 2004 recital. And the others are pieces I've never yet performed but have been "messing around" with for years....

I go back sometimes and generally get frustrated: if I'm going to perform a piece I spend a long time getting it just right, and because I play pieces through so many times, when I go back to them and remember just how sick of them I was. It's a shame, I'd rather not ruin pieces for life, but unfortunately that's the way it tends to go...

All the pieces at the forum concerts, for example I have never played again. I giorni, Chopin Nocturne, Debussy Arabesque...and I've never touched the Pathetique sonata since the A level recital.

Ah well.

I always advocate that my students do not forget to re-play pieces they have learned in the past. Not only to refresh themselves, but also as a measuring tool to see how much they have progressed. It's pleasing to hear them say they can now play pieces that they found a real struggle to begin with.

I also re-play old pieces myself. Mainly because my knowledge of how music is built has developed, and I too can see things I hadn't before. Instead of just churning out the notes, I can put the expression and feeling into a piece when I go over it again.

I like replaying old pieces generally, but it has to be quite a while after rather than just a few weeks...I recently had a bash through my recital programme (from April) and it was nice to play the pieces again but I think it was too soon.
As for ruining them for life, I was worried that would happen to the recital pieces...but I sort of went through stages of learning the pieces, hating them, then learning to enjoy them again as I got beyond the note-bashing...and most of them I still enjoy! There are some though that I have played a lot recently, such as one that I played for an audition, a concert, a recital and an exam, which really needs to gather a bit of dust before I revisit it again!

Thanks for everyone's thoughts!
I used to think it was a cop-out not to learn something new every time I had occasion to play something, but I've changed my mind. Having resurrected about four good concert pieces in the last year or so, which had slipped badly, I think I might now actually be able to say I have a 'repertoire' of things I could perform at short notice! It used to have be something I was working at at the time, or something I learned 'specially, with months' preparation. The more you bring them back, the more accessible they are the next time - and the easier they seem.

The polish and expression comes very quickly second time round; what I've found annoying, though, is the dam notes don't always, because I can't always remember what fingers I used and I have to rethink. On digging out an old Grade 8 piece the other day, I discovered that I must have been jumping through hoops to avoid using my fourth finger in certain places, as I musn't have been able to get good clarity with it at speed at that time! I'm now instinctively going for the more sensible options with fingering, but it's interfering with my automatic pilot!