oward the other end of the spectrum. Thus it may be that in the future critics and scholars will find that much of the ambiguity critics and other musicians felt toward Bernstein's work as a conductor was based on the differences in his various performances rather than on any particular problems with individual instances. In his numerous performances of Beethoven's works Bernstein seldom chose the middle course, leaning instead to one end of the spectrum or the other. He professed himself to be amazed at the differences in the two performances of the Ninth symphony that he gave in a single week and said that he had never heard of any conductor giving such widely varying performances in a career let alone in a week (Bernstein, 1982, p. 292). Though the remarks are somewhat self-serving it is important to note, in the critical context, that if one cannot attend the performances of a conductor without some degree of preparedness for the kind of attack one can expect it is often difficult to listen critically.
While extreme changes in style might ac
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