# The right speed



## tempo (Nov 8, 2012)

My first post here. Hello!

How important do you think it is for conductors and musicians to observe the speeds observed by composers' metronome markings and/or own recordings?

Although it's controversial (very) for many people, I actually prefer the beautiful third movement of Beethoven's 9th symphony played close to the much-debated metronome markings, so performances that run to 12 to 13 minutes sound much better to me than those recordings made by the likes of Solti and Bernstein. I firmly believe Beethoven's metronome markings were absolutely correct.

However, I think the second movement of Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No.2 sounds better when played slower, almost as more of an adagio than an andante, than the recordings made by Shostakovich and, subsequently, by his son and grandson.

How do you feel about performance speed?


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

I think there's room for both following the letter of the score and conductors who find new ways of looking at a work. I don't believe in "proper" speed, "proper" phrasing or "proper" orchestral balances. All those things are fine, but a left field interpretation can be great too.

I recently heard Brandenburg Concerto No 3 by the Bach Collegium Japan. The third movement is taken at a fearsome pace. I've never heard it played so fast. The thing is, it worked. That's what matters.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

bigshot said:


> All those things are fine, but a left field interpretation can be great too.


Agree. It it works, it works. And I'm a little suspicious of LvB's metronome marks anyway. He was pretty deaf when he had these added (with some mistakes made in transcription by his nephew), and his sense of "hall resonance" may have faded. If you recreate an orchestral piece in memory, you will almost always find that your tempo is faster than what you might prefer on actually hearing the work. Try it!


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

I don't mind if they're not followed at all...

Given the fact that performers don't even seem to care about leaving out an entire section of the music by missing a repeat, I don't see why a little thing like tempo should bother them.

Freedom is good - but having 'standard' performances is nice too.


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## Hassid (Sep 29, 2012)

Relative with speed, I've an old and strong grievance with the players of Paganini's caprices. Major part of them consider those works as a medium to brake records of fast playing on violin. Perfect example is the very first caprice. They played it between Allegro vivace/presto tempi. But What was the one Nicoló marked?Andante!!! At least 2/3 of all the 24 are marked on calm/moderate/slow tempi. But almost everybody plays faster. Extreme case is Alexander Markov. He use to play the 24 complete live, and finish all on 45/50'. To hell with him!.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

KenOC said:


> Agree. It it works, it works. And I'm a little suspicious of LvB's metronome marks anyway. He was pretty deaf when he had these added (with some mistakes made in transcription by his nephew), and his sense of "hall resonance" may have faded. If you recreate an orchestral piece in memory, you will almost always find that your tempo is faster than what you might prefer on actually hearing the work. Try it!


Mayhaps that has to do with the degree of training someone has. I'm confident that I could reproduce a remembered tempo easily. But that is because of a lot of repetition, not talent. My first piano teacher had me just sit and listen to metronomes, to see how long I could tolerate concentrating on just following the beat. It didn't seem like much of a problem to me to just be single minded for a while. So I would play the piano while wearing a metronomic earpiece, for a couple of years there. This was immensely helpful in the long run.

It seems that in today's age of teaching music, extreme methods can either be held to in certain circles, or disliked in many circles. But such extreme methods abounded in Beethoven's day, so it wouldn't surprise me if Beethoven still had an excellent sense for tempo.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

Ramako said:


> I don't mind if they're not followed at all...
> 
> Given the fact that performers don't even seem to care about leaving out an entire section of the music by missing a repeat, I don't see why a little thing like tempo should bother them.
> 
> Freedom is good - but having 'standard' performances is nice too.


Well, I think standard performances should be more of an ideal than they are. Artists like to change the character of pieces to fit their goals, but that doesn't do much to help in the actual preservation of the original ideals.


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## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

There are tempos that sound "right" and tempos that sound "wrong." And sometimes they're the same tempo, depending on the performers and the acoustic. That's why a conductor needs to use his ear and his discretion as well as a thorough knowledge of the score. For instance, Vaclav Neumann's Mahler Ninth with Leipsig Gewandhaus does not "sound" at all fast -- but by the stopwatch is one of the quicker recordings. Go figure. (And I agree that "monumental" Beethoven Ninth slow movements absolutely impede the flow and lack the ability to transport the listener that Beethoven built into the work.)


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## jani (Jun 15, 2012)

Beethoven had really great sense of the flow of music.
So conductors should follow his markings.


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## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

PS: Erich Leinsdorf's book "The Composer's Advocate," which I have mentioned elsewhere, has two full chapters titled "Knowing the Right Tempo."


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## tempo (Nov 8, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Agree. It it works, it works. And I'm a little suspicious of LvB's metronome marks anyway. He was pretty deaf when he had these added (with some mistakes made in transcription by his nephew), and his sense of "hall resonance" may have faded.


While I would largely agree with the "if it works, it works" idea, and I genuinely say this with complete respect, hasn't the 'Beethoven was deaf and had lost track of how music really sounds' idea been quite vigorously, and persuasively, challenged in recent years? Isn't this a largely outdated idea now?



Lukecash12 said:


> Mayhaps that has to do with the degree of training someone has. I'm confident that I could reproduce a remembered tempo easily. But that is because of a lot of repetition, not talent. My first piano teacher had me just sit and listen to metronomes, to see how long I could tolerate concentrating on just following the beat. It didn't seem like much of a problem to me to just be single minded for a while. So I would play the piano while wearing a metronomic earpiece, for a couple of years there. This was immensely helpful in the long run.
> 
> It seems that in today's age of teaching music, extreme methods can either be held to in certain circles, or disliked in many circles. But such extreme methods abounded in Beethoven's day, so it wouldn't surprise me if Beethoven still had an excellent sense for tempo.


Agreed.



Lukecash12 said:


> Well, I think standard performances should be more of an ideal than they are. Artists like to change the character of pieces to fit their goals, but that doesn't do much to help in the actual preservation of the original ideals.


Totally agree.



jani said:


> Beethoven had really great sense of the flow of music.
> So conductors should follow his markings.


Agree.



GGluek said:


> There are tempos that sound "right" and tempos that sound "wrong." And sometimes they're the same tempo, depending on the performers and the acoustic. That's why a conductor needs to use his ear and his discretion as well as a thorough knowledge of the score. For instance, Vaclav Neumann's Mahler Ninth with Leipsig Gewandhaus does not "sound" at all fast -- but by the stopwatch is one of the quicker recordings. Go figure. (And I agree that "monumental" Beethoven Ninth slow movements absolutely impede the flow and lack the ability to transport the listener that Beethoven built into the work.)


I absolutely agree, especially with your remarks about the "flow" of the third movement of the Choral, which I believe breaks down entirely when it's played at 15, 16, 17, 18 minutes etc.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

The problem with metronome markings is that they show only the tempi a composer decided on at one point in time . They have been known to conduct or play their music at different tempi at different times .
This is not to say that performers should pay no heed to the metronome markings in any given work, but to point out that we should not dogmatically hold performers to the exact observation of them .
Therefore, we can never be absolutely sure what tempi long dead composers would or would not have approved of .
Brahms, for example, was opposed to putting metronome markiings in his works, because he realized that there was plenty of room for different tempi and that musicians will inevitably play works at different ones.
So beware when you hear any musicologist or HIP-inclined musician pontrificating on the right tempi for any one of his works.
Often, we get accustomed to the tempi of the recording we first get to know a work on, and then, when we hear a different recording, the tempi may seem either to slow or too fast to us. But it's possible to get accustomed to the different ones if you keep listening to them .
Long ago when I was a teenager, the first recording of the Bruckner 5th I heard was the EMI one with Otto Klemperer and the Philharmonia ,w hich I took out from my library repeatedly . This is a very broad and deliberate performance which takes up nearly 80 minutes. Later, when I heard the Haitink.Cponcertgebouw recording on Phillips, which is considerably faster , it sounded too fast to me. I've heard many other recordings of theis great work since, and have become more tolerant of the different tempi in them .


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## tempo (Nov 8, 2012)

superhorn said:


> The problem with metronome markings is that they show only the tempi a composer decided on at one point in time . They have been known to conduct or play their music at different tempi at different times .
> This is not to say that performers should pay no heed to the metronome markings in any given work, but to point out that we should not dogmatically hold performers to the exact observation of them .
> Therefore, we can never be absolutely sure what tempi long dead composers would or would not have approved of .
> Brahms, for example, was opposed to putting metronome markiings in his works, because he realized that there was plenty of room for different tempi and that musicians will inevitably play works at different ones.
> ...


I agree that you can get used to the first performance/recording you hear, and I also agree that you can adapt to different speeds/styles of performance/recording down the line.

The first version of op.125 I owned was Karajan's 1977 recording. Initally, the likes of Boyd and Zinman did seem VERY fast, but now I find the complete opposite - i.e. Karajan's recording(s) of the third movement of Beethoven's Ninth sound ridiculously slow and drawn out.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

tempo said:


> While I would largely agree with the "if it works, it works" idea, and I genuinely say this with complete respect, hasn't the 'Beethoven was deaf and had lost track of how music really sounds' idea been quite vigorously, and persuasively, challenged in recent years? Isn't this a largely outdated idea now?


I haven't seen the counter-argument made (which doesn't mean it doesn't exist of course!) The closest I can remember are the arguments, apparently accurate, that Beethoven was never totally deaf -- he had his bad days and not-so-bad days right up to the end. I'm not sure this affects my speculation on his memory of hall resonance, though.

BTW, re metronomes: We should remember that the metronome wasn't invented until very near the end of Beethoven's second period, well after his deafness became serious enough that he had largely ceased performing.


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