I went to a performance by the Seattle Symphony back when Gerald Schwartz was conducting and he managed to make Beethoven's 9th symphony sound dull. It was an impressive feat. He explained, for reasons I've forgotten, that he even muted the violins. I went to a second performance a few years later by the same conductor, and it was equally devoid of spirit. It was enervated by far more than just the plodding tempo.

On the other hand, John Eliot Gardiner's Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique plays Beethoven on period instruments at the tempo the composer indicated, and it's absolutely gripping.