Pick up the tempo

SIR – If Benjamin Zander and the London Philharmonic Orchestra have indeed reduced the playing time for Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony from 100 minutes to 80 (report, April 14), then there has been a marked decrease in tempo over the past 40 years.

It is said that the playing time of a CD was fixed by the desire to accommodate a complete performance of that great work, and the longest known recording of it at that time, 1979, was 74 minutes.

Perhaps Mr Zander should turn his attention to Bruckner’s extended essays in that form – it just might make them bearable.

Richard Holroyd Cambridge