In Richard Taruskin's book "Text and Act" there are a couple of
wonderful essays on Norrington and contrasting his Beethoven with that
of Furtwangler.

Amazing stuff for anyone interested in the "historical accuracy" movement.

As for me, I believe Norrington is anti-musical, and anti-insightful.
I have no problem with performing on period instruments, but am highly
against the notion that Beethoven would have prefered instruments of his
own time over the instruments of today.

The power of Beethoven lies not in the exact timbres of the instruments
he was writing for, but in the depth of his personal inspiration, which
transcends those timbres and instruments.

Mark Landson
http://www.LandsonMusic.com