Merry Christmas, Wim! I just enjoyed watching this video with my brothers and my mom as we celebrate the holidays. I appreciate all of your work. And it was my pleasure to share my thoughts and the *simplicity* and meaningfulness of hearing and playing and understanding music in this way. I loved hearing your thoughts on my video. Thanks for making this video and posting it. Happy holidays! Robert
15:15 Interesting. In 19th century mandolin methods, it is common to see the term "Whole pennata" to describe the "two times" the pick touches the string, going down and up; and each of these two times, separately, is called "Half pennata". For example, in the preface of the "Scuola del Mandolino", by Carlo Munier, a reference method: "A whole pennata is called the movement that the plectrum makes striking the string once downwards and the other upwards." In other methods - I think that were more advanced in the 20th century - "a pennata" is just the downward "or" upward movement of the pick. And the name for the downward + upward movements is "double pennate". In the latter case I don't remember which method, but this issue is always addressed in the section where "tremolo" is discussed.
two movements might be an argument, but with the metronome there is a big difference, the sound, it is way more easy for a playing musician to listen to the clicks than to look at the metronome going back and forth. It is not natural at all to play the note every two clicks, especially when you don’t even see the metronome which you mostly don’t while playing.
The Hogan School of Music channel has recently started posting MIDI recordings of pieces in WBMP vs. single beat, to illustrate how ridiculous single beat tempos are.
@@DismasZelenka that is a valid argument in the case of WBMP vs. mainstream performance tempos, because it is a matter of taste. However it generally accepted that 19th century MM's are problematic. So problematic that in many cases these tempos can only be reached digitally - that is a different kind of ridiculous than the way WBMP may sound to somebody that is not used to it or simply does not like it.
When I count while playing modern music, where each tick is intended to be a beat, I also count the sub beat. In 4/4 tick tick tick tick being 1 2 3 4, I also do the 8th note (American naming lol) 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +. I'm adding the tick that whole beat would have given me. Of course that doubles how fast I'm counting. So a 72 BPM metronome I'm counting as 144. It seems likely composers that created impossible tempo markings really meant the ticks to work in pairs and really represent the beat and sub-beat, making them actually possible.
Yes! Ancient Romans considered a step ("passus") to be the whole cycle (left and right). So a Roman mile is 1000 passus ("mille passus") or 2000 steps if you count each foot.
Hi Wim, I completely agree with you. As an advanced amateur piano player, I find Czerny’s Op. 299 at wholebeat tempo quite a challenge to play. Of course, someone like Lang Lang, with much more practice and a top-tier piano, might manage it faster, but at half speed, the etudes sound great and make sense musically. My 8-year-old daughter is currently playing Bach’s Invention No. 1, and Czerny’s wholebeat tempo would definitely a nice goal to reach. Interestingly, Czerny’s explanations seem to suggest a single beat interpretation. However, mathematics can be tricky and confusing, so perhaps he didn’t explain it clearly, and others simply followed his wording when describing how to use the metronome.
@@DismasZelenka Thank you. So what I'm wondering is this, and I think it is interesting as it seems to be the foundation of WB: isn't the comparison of the metronome to the up-and-down motion of a conductors arm or the to-and-fro way in which scientists count pendulum swings actually rather foreign to the concept of the metronome? If the clicks were actually at either side of the swing (or even better, one side of the swing) it would make sense, but as it ticks right in the middle it seems that the rod reaching the end of the swing is unrelated to the tick you hear.
@@DismasZelenka Exactly. All the comparisons of twofold movements being pasted over the metronome make no sense. For a moment in time I used to be in favor of WB but things just aren't adding up. Not historically, not musically, not technically/mechanically. Perhaps we all understood Maelzel just fine all along.
In a staggered fashion from John Philip Sousa onwards up to the 1980s. Luther Vandross used the WBMP, whereas Cilla Black used SBT. Hence why the Luther Vandross cover of the famous song "Anyone Who Had A Heart" is half the tempo of the Cilla Black version.
No cut off. Both coexisted for many decades, even in 20th century. Sometimes even the same composer used both. There are cases where the same piece was republished with half the original tempo, because single beat reading was becoming more and more popular.
People commenting on this channel often forget that this theory didn't pop out of nothing. It's not a theory invented by some crazy youtuber, like some people are implying. It has always been there in musical circles, although unpopular. I got told that this was the way Beethoven had to be played about 15 years ago, by a professional clarinetist. You can also find articles by some musicologists explaining WBMP (or something very close to it) way before this channel was created, like this one: "NEW PERSPECTIVES ON TEMPO IN EIGHTEENTH AND EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY MUSIC BASED ON OLD METRONOME MARKINGS" published in 2006, by Alberto Muñoz de Sus.
@DismasZelenka Miehling did stop researching at Mersenne’s second=2 seconds paradox and did not recognize Latin case grammar when speaking of the cursus recursusque and its found variations?
I agree with the Whole Beat method, and it has sufficient historical documentation to being authentic. Physically, we are optimized for walking, but mentally, we are built for speed and pursue it in various forms of travel. And like it or not, even at the risk to our physical and mental health, we are attracted to it like moths to a flame. This is also true in music, and many other fields and activities.
Try playing the LBV op. 106 Adagio, (quaver 92) at whole beat tempo. It'll approach a half hour by itself. (Then you can add the five minute Largo transition.) For your audience it will be like watching a snail crawl. It's just not possible to hold an audience at that tempo. Notes stand by themselves like so may columns w/o a connective roof. No performer wants the audience waiting for him/her to stop.
the adagio of 106 is always played slower to much slower compared to SB, with Korstick even exactly in WB. As many slow movements are still played close to WB. Whenever 'musicality' is important, Wb often is not far away
Modern audiences may not fully grasp the performance practices of early music. Today's audiences are accustomed to instant gratification-we're the microwave generation. Early composers and writers crafted lengthy, detailed works, taking pages to convey a single idea. People traveled slowly. It seems counterintuitive, then, that we expect their music to be exceptionally fast when everything else in their lives moved at a much slower pace.
@@DonRushtheClassics not to mention the working out of complex and thorough musical theories and theses of polyphony, counterpoint, texture, articulations, etc. only for those ideas to be rendered as hard as possible to hear and to understand by the audiences, even the educated ones (principal audience), and by the players. For what? So one could say that one is “advanced”, is someone special? While trying to sell by the thousands? Here’s my masterpiece wherein the most important contribution to counterpoint, poetry, divine emotion is begotten, so please play it as fast, as incomprehensibly, and therefore as distastefully, as possible, and as Fortune permits you to buy the only working instruments! It’s so stupid. Then you hear things from those educated: Chopin’s music is not exactly for everyone! It’s “smart people music”! That’s it, their clientele is negated, (and insulted: they have theses too)
I have a friend who's studying piano at a conservatory and I've been sending some of your videos to him over the last 3 years. He visited me over the holidays and I asked him once: "On a scale from 1 to 5 how much do you think Winters is right about the historical use of metronome?". "About 90%" he replied. I promised him to send your upcoming book. You're winning Wim, it's inevitable. You cannot argue with actual science backed by sources. Especially the Katsaris/Liszt video about Beethoven transcriptions that are supposed to be "sight-readable by 1st year conservatory students". This is a headshot to single-beat. Mic drop. There is no coming back after this. And my friend and I both agreed that what you do is NOT making everybody to play in the historical tempo. It eliminates this stupid race to achieve doubled tempi. Now musicians are truly FREE to choose what they want. They may play in the historical tempo, they may want to show off, they may want to speed up or down as an artistic choice, to highlight something, etc. etc.
I don't actually know if I agree with the theory, but I agree with the conclusion, and I think there's a "tyranny of tempo". The only way to achieve change is to lead by example. Players need to perform and even compose in this manner in order to change the landscape.
@ perfectly said. When I perform now I will “teach” with more reasonable tempi . Beethoven scherzo movt and final movt of op.26 for example are not to be played fast. We must stand back close our contemporary ears and transport ourselves back in time . I believe music will unfold properly. Conservatories and competitions are out of control .
Why do you assume that the tempi are wrong? They reflect what the composer or editor had in mind. It is up to us to interpret them, read them in the context of their time. It's the same with all historical sources. If f.ex. an English word (f.eks. "cunning", "brave" or "gay") has changed its meaning since Shakespeare's times, you do not "correct" Shakespeare.
@@superblondeDotOrg You do realize that it is not just the metronome numbers which can have undergone changes in significance? If Beethoven is f.ex. not noting pedaling in the beginning, it doesn't mean that he didn't use a pedal, just that it wasn't common to notate. You didn't even have a sign for it. Then we get signs, but you can discuss whether he writes down ALL pedaling or only the not so intuitive. If a composer writes words into the score, how can we know what he or she means with f.ex. Allegro assai? Their understanding might be different from ours. Etc. There are tons of things to discuss/interpret. This is what we have editors for, writing comments in an introduction, writing footnotes, fixing earlier printing mistakes, etc. It is a profession on its own.
@@claudiabatcke1312 what is the purpose of your reply? I state that this youtuber who has been droning on and on about tempo for over fifteen years in excessive dramatic hyperbole should actually put some actual work into the topic to notate public domain scores at imslp and you bring up a bunch of tangential comments? what is wrong with you?
I am a modest piano teacher, and organist, but I talk too like a simple music lover. Liszt was a better virtuoso than Chopin, but Chopin was a better melodist than Liszt. Schubert was not a real virtuoso, but a wonderful melodist and composer. I don't like hear Chopin pieces as if it was Liszt playing, I prefer a bit more restraint, more poetry, more magic when I listen to Chopin pieces. And this affects the tempo, we don't care about precise tempo or metronome. I often agree with AuthenticSound, some pieces are played much too fast, and for slow movements, too slow, especially about Beethoven pieces. I like Chopin played with sobriety, like by Arthur Rubinstein, not like by Lang Lang, where speed seems to be the only goal, and exaggereted rubato that Chopin himself did not like for his own pieces. Chopin liked a quite regular left hand, and a more free right hand, we are sure of that, according of contemporary testimonies. Anyway, I don't think that Chopin pieces need so much high tempi, nor so much rubato. Speed is not the goal, nor the Graal. Excessive tempi, fast or slow, are more a fashion, or a manner for the pianist to stand out... Problem is : where do the excess begin, I know. Greetings from France.
I now play Beethoven op 26 at the right tempo. The scherzo movt was always too fast and impossible to play well. Also the final movt loses its meaning when played too fast. Thank you
I always found that scherzo relatively genial to play at a fast tempo, except for those two damned bars of scales in parallel thirds… but with some diligent practice, some spirited playing and maybe just a bit of faking I thought it worked out well enough. I’d agree that sometimes the last movement is played too fast, but playing too slowly completely sucks the life out of the comedy in the offbeat accents…
If this was true, a beginner student at the piano practicing triplets would have to already master 3 against 2's. And the physicist's pendulum doesn't make any sound. This is complete nonsense.
What is a triplet and who invented them? What are ternary divisions doing in a sonatina (“Ahn 5 No. 1”) by (att. to) Beethoven with an indication of q=168 in a Theodore Lack, 1916 compilation titled “Very Easy” (“Très facile”)? Are they triplets? Must have been some inconsequential, nonsensical teacher,
And that compilation also includes Mozart’s C major, “facile” sonata, a piece titled “fiugh anfenga”, or some s- like that, by Mozart himself and by other(s),
@@anthonyscicluna8485 and some people say that beginners from yore were amazingly gifted from countless hours of practice; so it should be less of a problem the earlier you go in time,
Or Steibelt’s Sonatina in C Major, with q=116 and a 4/4 allegro at q=176, in case a misprint adorns the “Beethoven”, which I see likely? Or on the Clementi Air Suisse with 32nd notes and eighth=169? Or in the Rondo in C by Hummel at q=100? Or Mozart’s Ariette in F major at q.=52? (Ariette comes from Aria?)
Brilliant video Wim. WBMP is finally getting recognized! I think the reason anyone resists the concept is doing so based on familiarity, rather than anything logical or even scholarly. People don't like to be uncomfortable. WBMP makes a lot of professionals question the very basis of what they consider musicianship - lightning fast "olympic speed." People alive now are constantly bombarded with visual stimuli begging for our attention. Think back to the days before MTV. We LISTENED to music. Yes, there were concerts and live performances to attend, but they never included a visual element other than watching the performers. There were no scrims behind the performers showing us how we should understand the music. I strongly believe that with the advent of MTV and UA-cam we have forgotten that music was written to be heard. We no longer are free to comprehend a piece or a song individually. We are literally forced to accept the performers' viewpoints. We are no longer free to internalize and evaluate music from our individual life experiences. We are force-fed the music so that we all understand it the same way. How limiting?! Recently, I discovered a remake of a landmark 1980's video by the group A-ha. Here is the original that was played on MTV: ua-cam.com/video/djV11Xbc914/v-deo.html. Next is the 2017 "Unplugged" version: ua-cam.com/video/-xKM3mGt2pE/v-deo.html. Because of the slower tempo, the entire mood of the song is different. I believe it changed what the song could be conveying to us. The same goes for WBMP. We are given the time to hear nuances that would be missed in the performance tempi that most performers choose today. This also allows us to hear the music through our own mind's "psycho-social" filters. Please forgive my lengthy comments. I will not apologize for what I have stated herein. I want everyone to rediscover the more subtle elements of music. I want us to be free to "hear" the music and apply it in our lives based on our own experiences of life. All that said, I wish all of the Authentic Sound people a most Merry Christmas and Happy, Healthy, and Prosperous New Year!
Merry Christmas, Wim! I just enjoyed watching this video with my brothers and my mom as we celebrate the holidays. I appreciate all of your work. And it was my pleasure to share my thoughts and the *simplicity* and meaningfulness of hearing and playing and understanding music in this way. I loved hearing your thoughts on my video. Thanks for making this video and posting it. Happy holidays!
Robert
People are awakening! Merry Christmas!!
When you start listening to the music, you slow down and begin to feel an immense pleasure.
It's a musical revolution. It's real. It's happening.
very exciting to see these examples and developments
15:15 Interesting.
In 19th century mandolin methods, it is common to see the term "Whole pennata" to describe the "two times" the pick touches the string, going down and up; and each of these two times, separately, is called "Half pennata".
For example, in the preface of the "Scuola del Mandolino", by Carlo Munier, a reference method:
"A whole pennata is called the movement that the plectrum makes striking the string once downwards and the other upwards."
In other methods - I think that were more advanced in the 20th century - "a pennata" is just the downward "or" upward movement of the pick. And the name for the downward + upward movements is "double pennate".
In the latter case I don't remember which method, but this issue is always addressed in the section where "tremolo" is discussed.
Remember "MM" well the new concept is "WM" that is "Winter's Metronome" in honour of Whole Beat Metronome Practice
An excellent recommendation….
All composers ahould use this that hold to wbmp
Merry xmass, Wim and Alberto.
You have opened my eyes and ears. I graduated from Juilliard years ago.
two movements might be an argument, but with the metronome there is a big difference, the sound, it is way more easy for a playing musician to listen to the clicks than to look at the metronome going back and forth. It is not natural at all to play the note every two clicks, especially when you don’t even see the metronome which you mostly don’t while playing.
I am so glad that your message is coming through WIm! Roberts remarks are very complimentary!
Hurray! 🙂⭐🙏🏼🎄❤
The Hogan School of Music channel has recently started posting MIDI recordings of pieces in WBMP vs. single beat, to illustrate how ridiculous single beat tempos are.
@@DismasZelenka ridiculous is not nonsensical,
@@DismasZelenka that is a valid argument in the case of WBMP vs. mainstream performance tempos, because it is a matter of taste. However it generally accepted that 19th century MM's are problematic. So problematic that in many cases these tempos can only be reached digitally - that is a different kind of ridiculous than the way WBMP may sound to somebody that is not used to it or simply does not like it.
@@DismasZelenka make a list,
Merry Christmas, Wim!
Excellent, as always. It's such a simple idea that if the MMs do not make sense, why not take another look at the root of the problem.
When I count while playing modern music, where each tick is intended to be a beat, I also count the sub beat. In 4/4 tick tick tick tick being 1 2 3 4, I also do the 8th note (American naming lol) 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +. I'm adding the tick that whole beat would have given me. Of course that doubles how fast I'm counting. So a 72 BPM metronome I'm counting as 144. It seems likely composers that created impossible tempo markings really meant the ticks to work in pairs and really represent the beat and sub-beat, making them actually possible.
Maybe it's like in the army, when marching, the sergeant keeps shouting 'left....left...left right left' 🙂 Best wishes for the new year Wim!
another two-fold example, of course!
Yes! Ancient Romans considered a step ("passus") to be the whole cycle (left and right). So a Roman mile is 1000 passus ("mille passus") or 2000 steps if you count each foot.
Thank you for your great work and Merry Christmas!
Great video. It is one and two left right left for a full cycle.
Hi Wim, I completely agree with you. As an advanced amateur piano player, I find Czerny’s Op. 299 at wholebeat tempo quite a challenge to play. Of course, someone like Lang Lang, with much more practice and a top-tier piano, might manage it faster, but at half speed, the etudes sound great and make sense musically. My 8-year-old daughter is currently playing Bach’s Invention No. 1, and Czerny’s wholebeat tempo would definitely a nice goal to reach. Interestingly, Czerny’s explanations seem to suggest a single beat interpretation. However, mathematics can be tricky and confusing, so perhaps he didn’t explain it clearly, and others simply followed his wording when describing how to use the metronome.
Even Lang Lang plays slower than indicated.
very cool! Merry Christmas everyone!
Doesn't a metronome tick when the rod passes the middle rather than when it is at either end?
@@DismasZelenka Thank you. So what I'm wondering is this, and I think it is interesting as it seems to be the foundation of WB: isn't the comparison of the metronome to the up-and-down motion of a conductors arm or the to-and-fro way in which scientists count pendulum swings actually rather foreign to the concept of the metronome? If the clicks were actually at either side of the swing (or even better, one side of the swing) it would make sense, but as it ticks right in the middle it seems that the rod reaching the end of the swing is unrelated to the tick you hear.
@@DismasZelenka Exactly. All the comparisons of twofold movements being pasted over the metronome make no sense. For a moment in time I used to be in favor of WB but things just aren't adding up. Not historically, not musically, not technically/mechanically. Perhaps we all understood Maelzel just fine all along.
@@DismasZelenka your cavalier disregard for reality should be studied,
@@DismasZelenka Shan’t?
Thank you for sharing both the instagram memes page and the UA-cam channel
DANK SEI GOTT!!
I AM using my metronome correctly!!
😮💨😮💨
Merry Christmas!
¡Feliz navidad, Wim! Gracias por tu trabajo, aquí seguiremos al pie del cañon en 2025 desde la trinchera hispanohablante
Ok so where is the cut off? When can we assume composers were not intending WBPM?
Evidently, no "cut-off" occurred.
After the nineteenth century.
In a staggered fashion from John Philip Sousa onwards up to the 1980s. Luther Vandross used the WBMP, whereas Cilla Black used SBT. Hence why the Luther Vandross cover of the famous song "Anyone Who Had A Heart" is half the tempo of the Cilla Black version.
No cut off. Both coexisted for many decades, even in 20th century. Sometimes even the same composer used both. There are cases where the same piece was republished with half the original tempo, because single beat reading was becoming more and more popular.
Well I spent time yesterday exploring this notion in works by both Beethoven and Mozart, not Chopin, can’t stand his music, and I think it is spot on.
Question: What MM would you suggest for Daquin's Noel X?
People commenting on this channel often forget that this theory didn't pop out of nothing. It's not a theory invented by some crazy youtuber, like some people are implying. It has always been there in musical circles, although unpopular. I got told that this was the way Beethoven had to be played about 15 years ago, by a professional clarinetist. You can also find articles by some musicologists explaining WBMP (or something very close to it) way before this channel was created, like this one: "NEW PERSPECTIVES ON TEMPO IN EIGHTEENTH AND EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY MUSIC BASED ON OLD METRONOME MARKINGS" published in 2006, by Alberto Muñoz de Sus.
@DismasZelenka Miehling did stop researching at Mersenne’s second=2 seconds paradox and did not recognize Latin case grammar when speaking of the cursus recursusque and its found variations?
I agree with the Whole Beat method, and it has sufficient historical documentation to being authentic.
Physically, we are optimized for walking, but mentally, we are built for speed and pursue it in various forms of travel. And like it or not, even at the risk to our physical and mental health, we are attracted to it like moths to a flame. This is also true in music, and many other fields and activities.
Try playing the LBV op. 106 Adagio, (quaver 92) at whole beat tempo. It'll approach a half hour by itself. (Then you can add the five minute Largo transition.) For your audience it will be like watching a snail crawl. It's just not possible to hold an audience at that tempo. Notes stand by themselves like so may columns w/o a connective roof. No performer wants the audience waiting for him/her to stop.
There is already a recording of the op 106 on this channel, go listen. I think it works beautifully!
@@DismasZelenka hope you get the patience to listen through the entire movement someday
the adagio of 106 is always played slower to much slower compared to SB, with Korstick even exactly in WB. As many slow movements are still played close to WB. Whenever 'musicality' is important, Wb often is not far away
Modern audiences may not fully grasp the performance practices of early music. Today's audiences are accustomed to instant gratification-we're the microwave generation. Early composers and writers crafted lengthy, detailed works, taking pages to convey a single idea. People traveled slowly. It seems counterintuitive, then, that we expect their music to be exceptionally fast when everything else in their lives moved at a much slower pace.
@@DonRushtheClassics not to mention the working out of complex and thorough musical theories and theses of polyphony, counterpoint, texture, articulations, etc. only for those ideas to be rendered as hard as possible to hear and to understand by the audiences, even the educated ones (principal audience), and by the players. For what? So one could say that one is “advanced”, is someone special? While trying to sell by the thousands? Here’s my masterpiece wherein the most important contribution to counterpoint, poetry, divine emotion is begotten, so please play it as fast, as incomprehensibly, and therefore as distastefully, as possible, and as Fortune permits you to buy the only working instruments! It’s so stupid. Then you hear things from those educated: Chopin’s music is not exactly for everyone! It’s “smart people music”! That’s it, their clientele is negated, (and insulted: they have theses too)
I have a friend who's studying piano at a conservatory and I've been sending some of your videos to him over the last 3 years. He visited me over the holidays and I asked him once: "On a scale from 1 to 5 how much do you think Winters is right about the historical use of metronome?". "About 90%" he replied. I promised him to send your upcoming book.
You're winning Wim, it's inevitable. You cannot argue with actual science backed by sources. Especially the Katsaris/Liszt video about Beethoven transcriptions that are supposed to be "sight-readable by 1st year conservatory students". This is a headshot to single-beat. Mic drop. There is no coming back after this.
And my friend and I both agreed that what you do is NOT making everybody to play in the historical tempo. It eliminates this stupid race to achieve doubled tempi. Now musicians are truly FREE to choose what they want. They may play in the historical tempo, they may want to show off, they may want to speed up or down as an artistic choice, to highlight something, etc. etc.
Unfortunately we have to re educate pianists. They refuse to give up conquered territory of fast playing. We need your videos more than ever now
I don't actually know if I agree with the theory, but I agree with the conclusion, and I think there's a "tyranny of tempo". The only way to achieve change is to lead by example. Players need to perform and even compose in this manner in order to change the landscape.
@ perfectly said. When I perform now I will “teach” with more reasonable tempi . Beethoven scherzo movt and final movt of op.26 for example are not to be played fast. We must stand back close our contemporary ears and transport ourselves back in time . I believe music will unfold properly. Conservatories and competitions are out of control .
Is WB only restricted to pianists?
So why arent you going through IMSLP and marking the scanned scores with correct tempo information?
Why do you assume that the tempi are wrong? They reflect what the composer or editor had in mind. It is up to us to interpret them, read them in the context of their time. It's the same with all historical sources. If f.ex. an English word (f.eks. "cunning", "brave" or "gay") has changed its meaning since Shakespeare's times, you do not "correct" Shakespeare.
@@claudiabatcke1312 not all scores are whole beat. Duh. Some are, some arent, none have been correctly notated for modern comprehension.
@@olofstroander7745 i decide of course because i am a genius. Duh. What are you even asking, troll?
@@superblondeDotOrg You do realize that it is not just the metronome numbers which can have undergone changes in significance? If Beethoven is f.ex. not noting pedaling in the beginning, it doesn't mean that he didn't use a pedal, just that it wasn't common to notate. You didn't even have a sign for it. Then we get signs, but you can discuss whether he writes down ALL pedaling or only the not so intuitive. If a composer writes words into the score, how can we know what he or she means with f.ex. Allegro assai? Their understanding might be different from ours. Etc. There are tons of things to discuss/interpret.
This is what we have editors for, writing comments in an introduction, writing footnotes, fixing earlier printing mistakes, etc. It is a profession on its own.
@@claudiabatcke1312 what is the purpose of your reply? I state that this youtuber who has been droning on and on about tempo for over fifteen years in excessive dramatic hyperbole should actually put some actual work into the topic to notate public domain scores at imslp and you bring up a bunch of tangential comments? what is wrong with you?
Science needs to be reproducible and replicable. Musicology, when it comes to historical tempi, reproduces only failures in practice.
We can now do this and perhaps add 10 percent only to satisfy modern ears. But no more than that. That would be fast enough
I am a modest piano teacher, and organist, but I talk too like a simple music lover. Liszt was a better virtuoso than Chopin, but Chopin was a better melodist than Liszt. Schubert was not a real virtuoso, but a wonderful melodist and composer. I don't like hear Chopin pieces as if it was Liszt playing, I prefer a bit more restraint, more poetry, more magic when I listen to Chopin pieces. And this affects the tempo, we don't care about precise tempo or metronome. I often agree with AuthenticSound, some pieces are played much too fast, and for slow movements, too slow, especially about Beethoven pieces. I like Chopin played with sobriety, like by Arthur Rubinstein, not like by Lang Lang, where speed seems to be the only goal, and exaggereted rubato that Chopin himself did not like for his own pieces. Chopin liked a quite regular left hand, and a more free right hand, we are sure of that, according of contemporary testimonies. Anyway, I don't think that Chopin pieces need so much high tempi, nor so much rubato. Speed is not the goal, nor the Graal. Excessive tempi, fast or slow, are more a fashion, or a manner for the pianist to stand out... Problem is : where do the excess begin, I know. Greetings from France.
I'm sorry, Schubert was at the level of Liszt or even higher than that. 📝
Im still confused. Are you subtly trolling them people or what?😂😂😂
I now play Beethoven op 26 at the right tempo. The scherzo movt was always too fast and impossible to play well. Also the final movt loses its meaning when played too fast. Thank you
I always found that scherzo relatively genial to play at a fast tempo, except for those two damned bars of scales in parallel thirds… but with some diligent practice, some spirited playing and maybe just a bit of faking I thought it worked out well enough.
I’d agree that sometimes the last movement is played too fast, but playing too slowly completely sucks the life out of the comedy in the offbeat accents…
I get that what you would get with a major publisher is better editors. Another good take on this topic.
If this was true, a beginner student at the piano practicing triplets would have to already master 3 against 2's. And the physicist's pendulum doesn't make any sound. This is complete nonsense.
What is a triplet and who invented them? What are ternary divisions doing in a sonatina (“Ahn 5 No. 1”) by (att. to) Beethoven with an indication of q=168 in a Theodore Lack, 1916 compilation titled “Very Easy” (“Très facile”)? Are they triplets? Must have been some inconsequential, nonsensical teacher,
And that compilation also includes Mozart’s C major, “facile” sonata, a piece titled “fiugh anfenga”, or some s- like that, by Mozart himself and by other(s),
@@anthonyscicluna8485 and some people say that beginners from yore were amazingly gifted from countless hours of practice; so it should be less of a problem the earlier you go in time,
Or Steibelt’s Sonatina in C Major, with q=116 and a 4/4 allegro at q=176, in case a misprint adorns the “Beethoven”, which I see likely? Or on the Clementi Air Suisse with 32nd notes and eighth=169? Or in the Rondo in C by Hummel at q=100? Or Mozart’s Ariette in F major at q.=52? (Ariette comes from Aria?)
@@anthonyscicluna8485 Or for 16th note triplets: the inclusion in said document of Clementi’s Rondo-Vivace in F at q=80?
First
It’s pretty sad to see that continue with this.
Haha.
Brilliant video Wim. WBMP is finally getting recognized! I think the reason anyone resists the concept is doing so based on familiarity, rather than anything logical or even scholarly.
People don't like to be uncomfortable. WBMP makes a lot of professionals question the very basis of what they consider musicianship - lightning fast "olympic speed."
People alive now are constantly bombarded with visual stimuli begging for our attention. Think back to the days before MTV. We LISTENED to music. Yes, there were concerts and live performances to attend, but they never included a visual element other than watching the performers. There were no scrims behind the performers showing us how we should understand the music.
I strongly believe that with the advent of MTV and UA-cam we have forgotten that music was written to be heard. We no longer are free to comprehend a piece or a song individually. We are literally forced to accept the performers' viewpoints.
We are no longer free to internalize and evaluate music from our individual life experiences. We are force-fed the music so that we all understand it the same way. How limiting?!
Recently, I discovered a remake of a landmark 1980's video by the group A-ha. Here is the original that was played on MTV: ua-cam.com/video/djV11Xbc914/v-deo.html. Next is the 2017 "Unplugged" version: ua-cam.com/video/-xKM3mGt2pE/v-deo.html. Because of the slower tempo, the entire mood of the song is different. I believe it changed what the song could be conveying to us.
The same goes for WBMP. We are given the time to hear nuances that would be missed in the performance tempi that most performers choose today. This also allows us to hear the music through our own mind's "psycho-social" filters.
Please forgive my lengthy comments. I will not apologize for what I have stated herein. I want everyone to rediscover the more subtle elements of music. I want us to be free to "hear" the music and apply it in our lives based on our own experiences of life.
All that said, I wish all of the Authentic Sound people a most Merry Christmas and Happy, Healthy, and Prosperous New Year!