CDs listened to today:

• Ludwig van Beethoven: Missa Solemnis (This recording is a period-instrument item from John Eliot Gardiner. I find that, for the most part, Beethoven is better when performed by "authentic" crowd. I don't really think that the instruments are the key to why these are better, although they do seem to blend better with the human voice than the modern, nylon strings and mylar drumheads. The key for why these performances are so good are the tempi. Beethoven was a bit of a fanatic for tempi and a big fan of metronomes to enforce and accurate tempo for performers. 20th-Century conductors had a bad habit of slowing down Beethoven from the original tempo, probably to emphasize the majesty of the music and the weight of the sound. What was lost in the more brisk pieces was a sense of wildness that is truer to the Romantic era that old Ludwig was helping to forge. In the slower pieces, the even-slower tempi favored by 20th-Century musicians might lead you to think that Beethoven wasn't interested in rhythms. Take a listen to his 7th Symphony and think again. The right tempo makes all the difference. Of course, those guys from the 1900s also tended to make rubato choices where Beethoven didn't mark one--insult to injury in my view.)