As a conductor Leonard Bernstein considered Beethoven, "of all composers", to be "the most interpretable" (Bernstein, 1982, p. 292). As with his various approaches to most of the classical and romantic repertoire, however, Bernstein's interpretations of Beethoven met with a range of responses. Yet the responses could be favorable or extremely unfavorable even when they came from the same source. Harold C, Schonberg, once chief music critic for the New York Times, wrote of a 1960 performance of the Leonora Overture No. 3 and the Piano Concerto No. 1 that they featured "a couple of moments that were absolutely bizarre" and that the latter "was a highly personal and rather vulgar performance" which he disliked a great deal (quoted in Peyser, 1987, p. 303). But of a 1979 performance of the Ninth Symphony Schonberg wrote that although "some" might call it "vulgar" or "self-indulgent . . . this performance simply pulsated with life [and he] admired it no end" (quoted in Secrest, 1994, p. 356). The question of what accounts for such widely differing responses cannot be answered merely by reference to Bernstein's flamboyant posturing and overwhelming self-promotion. These attributes did sometimes get in the way of critical appreciation. They also, as they were intended to do, helped make him the most famous classical musician in America. The answer to the question lies instead in the fact that Bernstein frequently conducted the same pieces in completely different ways. Schonberg, and many others, were responding to different interpretations which either pleased them or did not.
In discussing 1970 performances of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony which he had led in Vienna and, six days later, in Boston, Bernstein said that the two occasions represented leanings toward either end of the "extreme range of interpretive differences" that are possible "in performances of any work by Beethoven" (Bernstein, 1982, p. 291). Whether one believe...