Those who know Zinman and the Tonhalle’s set of Beethoven symphonies‚ also on Arte Nova (7/99)‚ will have a more than general idea of what to expect. I had no such foreknowledge‚ and could not believe my ears. Perhaps that exaggerates. In one sense‚ this is a recording that has been waiting to happen. Speeds have been increasing‚ textures (choral and orchestral) becoming lighter for more than a decade now – it is hard to realise that Gardiner’s Gramophone Award­winning recording was made as far back as 1989. The great Missa was solemnest years ago‚ as under Klemperer. But Zinman favours speeds which in slow movements are not what previously constituted our ideal of ‘slow’‚ and in fast passages are breathtaking. Amazingly‚ his players and singers can not only cope but also make these impossible flights sound blithely graceful‚ almost easy. Another feature for which the symphonies will have prepared listeners is a certain unorthodoxy with regard to the score. Nothing is said in the booklet about editorial matters‚ but reviews of the symphonies stated that while the edition there was the new Bärenreiter‚ some ornamentation was the conductor’s own. In the Missa‚ the soprano and mezzo lightly decorate their cadenza­like ‘in nomine Domini’‚ and – more questionable – the tenor gives a flourish to his climactic ‘Miserere’ in the Agnus Dei. The solo quartet takes not only the ‘Pleni sunt caeli’ but also the ‘Osanna’ which follows. The quiet ‘Et vitam venturi’ is sustained for long without crescendo‚ and the Prelude to the Benedictus also achieves a new quiet sonority. Of the soloists‚ Luba Orgonasova is outstanding‚ Anna Larsson good‚ Rainer Trost and Franz­Josef Selig more intermittently so. But chorus and orchestra are astonishing: both of them very fine bodies and‚ here‚ responding to Zinman’s idea of the music as though for joy and with the assurance of true virtuosos. Now all of this leaves unanswered the big question – which is probably nothing less than ‘But is it Beethoven?’ At this stage it will have to remain unanswered. The test will come from living with it. I find it exhilarating and – taking the performance not in separate items but as a single self­balancing unit – quite profoundly moving. I can also say that I wouldn’t want it as my single version (Gardiner and Herreweghe‚ perhaps‚ and for a grand view I still find Levine‚ Salzburg 1991‚ an inspiring account). But this of Zinman’s is certainly showing the great work in a new light‚ and for the present it goes into my book of revelations.