And no works are more central than the Beethoven symphonies.

Not for those who love their Beethoven symphonies extremely fast.

Now, at last, they have no trouble accepting the idea that a Beethoven symphony can be expressed as a set of numbers.

It would be equally difficult to create a Beethoven symphony without notation.

I forget which writer it was who said that life should be like a Beethoven symphony.

Think how nice we were with those Beethoven symphonies.

"These places have Beethoven symphonies," they said, "and so should we."

Still, integral sets of the Beethoven symphonies can make artistic sense.

In recent years, others have performed and recorded earlier Beethoven symphonies on original instruments.

This is why I was so concerned when we were making the new set of the Beethoven symphonies in 1977.