To offset Beethoven in Guatemala there was, some ten years later, a desperately bad Beethoven in Texas. […] I have said that Beethoven is served by scruple. Whether he is to be so served is apparent to the soloist from the first bards, indeed from the first notes on the timpani, which are often neither in tune nor in rhythm. The four short notes of the first string entry are another sign of what to expect. When the Texas orchestra began the tutti at rehearsal I was so appalled that, for once in my life, I seriously considered canceling the performance. I felt thoroughly ashamed of myself: did thirty years of work, travel, thought, discipline and commitment to music lead only to the massacre of Beethoven? << less