# HIP Tempo's are usually quicker, If they started quick, why did they slow down?



## realdealblues (Mar 3, 2010)

I'm not trying to start a fight about which is better. It's an honest question that I'm just generally curious about. 

"Historically Informed Performances" generally have quicker tempos.

So, if they were written that way and performed that way back when they were written, why did they slow down?

Many classic performances and recordings of classical works that were considered "The Standard" are agonizingly slow if you are a listener, or grew up listening to "Historically Informed Performances". 

Meanwhile, many who grew up on the "The Standard" recordings and performances find "Historically Informed Performances" way too fast.

So, if Beethoven or Mozart or Bach used smaller orchestras with faster tempos, why did they slow down when we started using modern orchestras? 

I can understand why orchestras got larger, but listening and seeing both types of performances these days I notice some SERIOUS differences in tempo.

The only idea I can come up with is because Classical works got more Romanticized during the Romantic Era and it became more in vogue and became "the standard" but I admit this is only a guess.

What do you think?


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## Norse (May 10, 2010)

I'm thinking the same thing. The romantic movement emphasized 'expression' in a more extreme way, and therefore when they went back to classical works, they would play a classical adagio the same way they were used to playing a romantic adagio. However, this theory would be better at explaining why slow movements would get slower, than why faster movements also got slower..


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## Andreas (Apr 27, 2012)

Perhaps technically, it is more challenging to conduct faster tempi with large orchestras. So as orchestras grew, maybe they progressively slowed down. Faster tempi demand high precision, and I would imagine that the more players there are, the more difficult it gets to main this precision.

But I would also not underestimate the influence of Wagner's music. I only really know his ouvertures and preludes, but based on them, I feel that his music is much less focused on the rhythmic element of music. At least when I think of the Lohengrin, Tristan or Parsifal preludes, they seem to be mostly about the flow of melody, not the sharp edges of rhythm.

But these are just guesses.


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## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

I think the above guesses are not unreasonable. But I would add in the rise, during the nineteenth cenutury, of full time conductors, and the well-documented tendency of conductors, as they age, to start associating broader tempos with monumentality. Witness what Bernstein (among others) started to do with Mahler adagios, or the tendency of (mostly Germanic) conductors to take, say, the slow movement of Beethoven's Ninth, at a tempo that robs it of its natural flow. After time, these all become part of the traditions that accrete onto works and make listeners assume that's the way they were meant to go.

george


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

To give the 20th century conductors more arm waving to do, slowing it down facilitates that.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Yes, quite a few of the HIP recordngs I've heard have seemed much too fast to me. The HIP musicians seemed so determined to rid the music of "heaviness" and "stodginess" that they went too far in the opposite direction . The usual tempo has often been allegro con like a bat out of hell !
Of course, we can never be certain of what tempi long dead composers would or would not have approved of , so you should always be wary of any musicologically-minded musician who claims to have found "the right tempi " for any given work or a composer's output in general . Watch out for Sir Roger Norrington , and take anything he says with a grain of salt . And to hell with the captain of the vibrato police !
In fact, I have heard stories of musicologists in recent years who claimed that the actual tempi used to play the music of Bach in his day were actually rather slow relatively speaking ! 
Norrington's nonsense has gone as far as Wagner ! I have his EMI CD from the 1990s of Wagner preludes with the London Classical players . His Meistersinger overture is so brisk and lightweight as to positively trivialize the music !


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Its also a difference with the instruments themselves right? 18th century replica instruments do not resonate or have as full of tone as the modern instruments. Vibrato is therefore less lucrative and that harsher sound to me adds an edge that just begs to be accelerated and dynamically contrasted in more abrupt ways.


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## Andreas (Apr 27, 2012)

superhorn said:


> Watch out for Sir Roger Norrington , and take anything he says with a grain of salt . And to hell with the captain of the vibrato police !
> In fact, I have heard stories of musicologists in recent years who claimed that the actual tempi used to play the music of Bach in his day were actually rather slow relatively speaking !
> Norrington's nonsense has gone as far as Wagner ! I have his EMI CD from the 1990s of Wagner preludes with the London Classical players . His Meistersinger overture is so brisk and lightweight as to positively trivialize the music !


I have that recording too, and I find that if offers an intruigingly different perspective on Wagner. Also, Norrington claims that Wagner himself said that the Meistersinger prelude should last eight and a half minutes. I haven't seen the original quote, so I don't know if it's true. But if it is, then Norrington is closer to Wagner's original conception, at least in terms of tempo, than just about anybody else around.


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## realdealblues (Mar 3, 2010)

Interesting thoughts. I try to have one HIP recording and one Modern recording of each work. In the end there are certain works that work better for me using HIP and others that don't. Whether or not the instruments are period doesn't matter as much to me. 

For me it is a "flow" thing. I hear/feel a natural flow and rhythm inside myself listening to most works which is how I judge what works best for me. Some works I like equally well both ways.

Example: The first Movement of Beethoven's 5th is one. Guys like Norrington & Gardiner and even Karajan for that matter opt for a quicker tempo which gives a more "Forceful Attack" to me where Bohm & Bernstein opt for a slower tempos that seem far "Grander" and "Crushing". They both seem to work for me though.

The first Movement of Mozart's 40th symphony is one that doesn't work that way for me. The slower pace of Bohm & Bernstein just seem to breakup the natural "flow" and "rhythm" of the work for me where Marriner or Pinnock sound far more "natural" to me using a quicker pace.

In the end everybody has different ears obviously but I still find the whole tempo thing with HIP vs Modern very interesting.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

I much prefer CPE Bach on HIP and often Haydn too. In general, early clacissism and fast paced and notey baroque sounds better to me HIP. But more sparse things like Corelli, oddly enough, I also enjoy very much on modern instrumnents, as they can then take on a very lush and melodic feel.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

There have been a lot of complaints as the HIP movement has passed beyond the Baroque and even the Viennese Classical period. But sometimes it works. Gardiner's set of Schumann symphonies really blew off the dust and let some fresh air in (in my opinion at least!)

If you run into this set, check out the original version of Schumann's 4th, which is more lightly scored and hardly ever played. Brahms liked it a lot and published it over Clara Schumann's objections in 1891.


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