Canons and musical jokes

"In his anniversary year, the quest to record every note Beethoven wrote continues ... Beethoven often scribbled snippets of music for friends and colleagues, whether as gifts or as appendages to letters. The conductor Thomas Holmes and his various Vienna performers give us a compilation of more then 50 of them, most being less than a minute long ... They are worth hearing as a curiosity ... The performances are aptly light-footed and the words clear, the singing often lacks the firmness and precision the pieces require".