Mark Landson replied to my earlier riposte:

>Of course, we can only suppose, but based on the fact that Beethoven was
>always very interested in new technological developments of instruments,
>especially the piano, which began a great transformation during his
>lifetime, I think we can say pretty crlearly that Beethoven would have
>preferred his works on modern instruments to those of his time.  There are
>times when Beethoven had to write "wrong" notes in the trumpets, or leave
>them out on a certain note that was unplayable on the instrument at that
>time.

Sorry, I don't agree, mainly because when people make this sort of argument
it's always with the present-centric assertion that Beethoven (or Bach, or
anybody else for that matter) would always prefer "modern" instruments of
"our" time.  I'm sure that many people said the same thing in the
mid-1800s, or the late 1800s, or the early 1900s, ad naus.

And, if we're going to be resurrecting dead composers (even ones who
were famously deaf in their lifetimes) to get their opinions of "modern"
instruments, who's to say they can't already know what sorts of instruments
people will be playing 100 years from now, and prefer those? Perhaps
Beethoven, being deaf, would just as soon prefer 22nd Century direct-brain
electronic implants to generate the "sounds" he considers ideal.

My own feeling is that in the grand scheme of time, today's "modern"
instruments are tomorrow's "period" ones.  I can see them subject to
future generations discussing them as "quaint" ideas for making music
that composers such as Stravinsky, Copland, Glass, or Adams would never
have tolerated if they had only heard the kinds of instruments and playing
techniques that "modern" musicians can do in the Era of teletransportation
and Warp drive:-)

"Modern" is of course, subject to some equivocation since many of the
"modern" instruments musicians play in orchestras or as soloists can
date back to times that are even older than Beethoven (talking almost
exclusively about strings, with the knowledge that they're usually altered
after the fact).  Any many of the "period" ones, especially those used for
music from the before the Common Practice era, are "modern" reproductions.

One can always quibble with the interpretive ways in which instruments of
a certain era are *used* today in performance, but heaven knows that occurs
enough even when the instruments (and musicians!) used in two different
performances are exactly the same.

Bill H.