The vanity of virtuosity is destroying a lot of music, these days as well as in 1839. Many musicians think: faster = better (to show off), and neglect feeling, phrasing, accentuation etc.
I will share a story with you about my years at Juilliard and about tempi in Mozart. At the time of my studies for my degrees there, I frequently ended up on a list of top jury performances at the end of each year. Unfortunately, this meant a delay in the return to my home for the summer months. The delay resulted from the automatic inclusion into a rather politically fixed internal competition which took place each year. That year, the concerto selected by the competition was Mozart's #23 K488. I did not on principal listen to tempi of great pianists and performances recorded in history as I was intent on finding the right tempo and approach of my own. I was amazed at the fast tempi, indeed the same tempo I heard from the many practice rooms I passed on the fifth floor of the school. As I prepared in the weeks before the concerto, I grew more convinced that no music could survive at anything close to the Presto at which the others took the third movement in particular. It became a mad gallop to prove the facility at the piano rather than the sunshine that comes through the clouds after the painfully beautiful second movement of the concerto. As I was walking slowly, reflecting on my performance after the competition was over, I noticed one of the teachers (who was the chair of the department at the time and known by the nickname of Mr. Metronome, ironically) toasting a brandy snifter with his student who was just about to be announced a winner of the competition. Yes, it was not yet official at that moment. As I passed them, the professor called out to me - "What happened to you in your performance?!" I replied over my shoulder and stopped to look him in the eye, "What do you mean?" He said, "Your third movement was much slower then everyone else played it! What happened?" I answered that I played at the tempo I felt Mozart intended and which expressed his music. I saw him nod with a sad smile and turn back to his student as I kept on my solitary way. This memory is curious also because it was after that time that I heard Rubinstein on his RCA recording take the same tempo or one very close to what I chose. There is of course a range that works with different interpretations. I therefore agree with you on record of my professional life and my choices of integrity over the decades. I am glad you are also a champion of independent and thoughtful research. Your musicianship speaks as loud as your words. Yes, our century has lost much and the loss continues in that direction, much as you say. Best wishes in your work.
Two of my teachers studied there with a more recent teacher attending about a decade ago. My very first teacher studied with Beveridge Webster while he was head of the piano department at New England Conservatory then later when he was dean at Juilliard. She'll be 99 this year God willing, but sadly has dementia, otherwise, I would be showing her these videos. At a piano concert about 10 years ago, we saw Dimitri Rachmannov playing a Schubert-only concert. During the intermission, she went up to him and said you graduated from Juilliard! He looked at her rather scared because even though she's only about 5 feet tall now, she can be intimidating! ;-) She then went on to say she thought he played well and who she studied with. He looked at me afterwards and went "Whew!" He thought she was going to bring the wrath upon him that many piano teachers can! :-) Being a family friend, she would visit us during holidays and of course I would play the stuff that I was working on at the time. She kept telling me that I was playing everything too fast. I would tell her that my teacher at the time expected such and such a tempo, given the metronome markings, but she would shake her head and tell me to play it as I want. Then one day she said something that was interesting, or rather thought provoking. She said that some pianists are born capable of playing brilliantly while others don't have that in their vocabulary. This made sense to me, but she went on to say that Beveridge Webster told her that he felt that "today's" pianists play way too fast with no feeling whatsoever and that everything is all about showing off their technique rather than the music. Then in so many other words, she then went on to say that anyone can play fast and mechanically, and that playing with feeling and slower is far more difficult. It took some time for this to sink in, and after studying with Wim many years later, and working on pieces by myself now, I'm discovering a whole new world of music, which has been lost. As time has gone on, I find myself eagerly looking back at the slower tempos and today I see a lot more of this than expected in the works by Gottschalk, Schumann, Jadassohn, Chopin, and so many other composers. To me this makes a lot more sense than whipping along at a breakneck speed which is on the verge of failure 90% of the time. Don't get me wrong. There are places where a fast passage is required, but not everything we play requires that. Reading about what your professor said to you, it sadly shows that he has fallen into the same show-off trap because the "success" of his student's performance reflects back on him.
Good on you! I heard the comment after my Mozart A minor Sonata (I) K 310 that "[t]here is too much Thomas Hughes in your pieces", and I thought to myself that should we exhume and breath life back into Mozart, then I guess you'd know for sure. Funny how I was SECOND in every competition in front of that adjudicator for two straight years in Chopin Etudes, Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach P/F classes. SECOND! Thanks to Wim, I wear it like a badge of honour and true musicianship, not the monkey awards they give to the most frantic and worthless performances. Beethoven is quoted as saying (I paraphrase) that missing a note is insignificant, but playing without passion is an unpardonable sin! I think I like second place with Beethoven, truth be told.
@@thomashughes4859 : I've been told the same kind of thing. You play with too much passion as one teacher put it. Huh? You mean playing the music with feeling is the problem? It seems that pianists are the only performing artists who have to not only play their instruments 100% perfectly 100% of the time, they also have to play without feelings at the fastest tempo possible, and all from memory to boot! Singers are allowed to go off rhythm, time, and even key, and dancers make up their own steps and it's considered a "nouvelle" approach to a classic, but if a concert pianist does something different, it's not acceptable and the pianist is held accountable 100% for a giving the slightest hint of their personality in an otherwise dry and mechanical performance. As you can probably tell, I'm not enthused by the latest breed of pianists out there and prefer listening to the golden era pianists such as Horowitz and Rubenstein among others. I think we're too caught up in our mechanical and digital world and forget the artistic and even human side of something creative.
@@Clavichordist You bet, John! Even before Wim (shall we say B.W. - HAHA!!!), I used to add trills, mordents, and even improvise with classical works, Chopin, etc. It sounded like they should have been there, and lo and behold, the more I read, the more "THEY" did, too. Saint Saenz said that the Mozart (EXTREMELY SLOW HE SAID) required the artist to embellish, especially the repeats. At the end of the day, I don't care to win or lose the "battle of the pendulum"; I 'm just tickled pink that I found Wim and all of you who are the real magicians/musicians/artists in the world. I have half a mind to "rent" the orchestra in AGS - or I might have a friend or two in high places - to do even the first movement of the Beethoven 5th. I'm quite the conductor. Tape it, print it, make T-shirts, and do the whole GO Beethoven, slower, scene.
@@Clavichordist Actually I never wrote about any of my teachers in the above story from my life. I was amazingly fortunate and honored to study with some of the best remaining luminaries of music from the very roots of classical music. Yet, although I can trace a direct teacher to student lineage back to Joachim (my first and most important teacher was a student of his direct lineage in violin), Anton Rubinstein, Liszt and thus Beethoven along with some other human gods, it is each of us as musicians that connects to the source. Independently - although inspired and directed - that is as immutable as the fact that one can not teach a talent into existence. One has to be born with it. Taste and style however, must be passed along and taught properly without stifling the individual growth and maturity. These traditions are tragically being aggressively suppressed by several generations of mediocrity in power. There are other factors as well, but it is hopeful that talent can bypass common knowledge and at times lead a person to the original truth.
I am 85 years old and have been a music lover since early childhood. Throughout that time I have thought that performances of Chopin and Bach were usually too fast. To put it in layman’s terms, crudely but honestly, i have said to companions that the virtuosic playing ‘gobbles up’ the notes so that they cannot be appreciated and that it sounds as though the players were afraid of missing the next bus! One hopes for slower tempi. Congratulations on your well argued thesis.
I've yet to watch the video, still browsing the comments. But the phrase "mouse-click mentality" immediately came to mind. On an everyday life basis, haven't you all noticed the speed of young people's speech? The speed at which they rush you through check-outs? (Unless of course they have to mentally work out the correct change for some reason instead of the till doing it). Have you watched the four and five year old Asian children on You Tube being made to plunk their way robotically through a well known piece at breakneck speed? The speed at which teens and tweenies frantically text and scroll? The insane gabbling of some ads especially on You Tube? I can't follow the slurred speech in movies any more. Mouse-click mentality. Look around you. It's everywhere.
Though I not always agree with you, Wim, that this or that particular piece should be played in a double-beat way (especially regarding Chopin), here you're absolutely right in my opinion. The Tomaschek double-beat tempo sounds very natural in the Ouverture. The openings chords make more sense than in the usual tempo, and are beautiful, frightening, mysterious and petrifying.
Very interesting indeed. As a pianist, I've always felt most performers took Mozart's sonatas too quickly. I've always preferred the leisurely, intimate tempos of Maria Landowska over the brisk, showy interpretations of say, Horowitz et al. There is a depth of meaning that is lost by too much speed.
I actually think Horowitz has it just right. I know that he studied a great amount of Mozart's writings and the descriptions of tiempi by his contemporaries. Played too slowly, we suffer, played too quickly you lose. Since Mozart's piano music does not have lots of "texture," it is the artist who must play it with feeling, mood and taste. Horowitz does just that.
I'm glad to see other professionals musicians being aware of the fact that during Baroque and Clasical, the average tempo was not a mad Horse race. I've always thought that lots of baroque fugues and pieces, classical symphonies, Ouvertures, opera's etc. are performed too damn fast and the subtle beauty and the harmonic complex poliphony is almost completely lost or ununderstandable. Good to see you reiterate it time to time :D
This guy is an idiot. These were no metronome markings up until 19th century so his theory doesnt even make sense for that. Even then the countless works by brahms, Beethoven, Chopin are meant to be played in the metronome markings. Mozart never even gave tempo markings no musicolgists believe Don givioni is meant to be played as in the intro. This theory is so damn stupid and the guy just cherry picks certain pieces that don't sound too bad at a slower tempo(Even then he plays them faster than his theory says), ignores all historical documentation including instructions on how to use a metronome. Hell you even have recordings of Liszts students playing at the full tempo, and even recordings of the composers them selves like Brahms, Debussy, Saint Sains e.t.c playing even faster than is normal today
@@mactire8557 Eveyone whose recordings you mention are too late for this theory to be relevant to. The fact that metronome marks did not exist until then is kind of irrelevant, as they still show how people thought of music around that time. If I destroy all metronomes and M. Markings now, and ask you how fast 'allegro' is, you can still give me an idea of it, right? And then when I reintroduce the metronome, you should be able to give me an accurate marking. Same goes for back then - they would have had an idea of what each tempo indication meant, and the m.m. was just a useful tool for codifying it, but it wouldn't have changed how people thought of the tempo. Not saying I agree with this stuff entirely either (I made a comment above a little bit ago with some counter-evidence), but it's certainly well-researched
It is a really fascinating topic! But I still have dobts about the fully applicability of this theory. Just to mention a pretty detailed case of early nineteen century: the English conductor Sir George Smart (1776-1867) used to record all the duration of the performances of the Beethoven's symphonies and these records do not look so different from the durations we usually have today ( for instance: 9th Symphony, on 17th of April 1837, lasted around 1h and 7 min). Moreover you have to consider that most of tempos of the symphony themes were played to Sir George Smart by Beethoven on 16th of September 1825. Of course we do not know if and how many repetitions used to be performed and that affects our analysis a lot. But even considering the 2 extreme options (1. no repetition or 2. all the repetitions) the double-bit theory seems not applicable or not always applicable.
As a practising musician I came to your conclusion early in my career, based purely on musical and practical considerations and without any of the academic research you so well present. Intuitively it was obvious that some mm I came across were for half the metrical unit (double the performance tempo).
How do you concentrate on elegant phrasing, and knowing how to make the phrases breath and live,. if you are concentrating on rattling it off as fast as possible.?
This is the first time I have known of anyone who thinks as I do about the accelerated modern tempi imposed on 18th- and early 19th-century music. The error is especially obvious when you listen to modern recordings of the fast movements of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos. The tempi are so ridiculously accelerated that it is difficult even to hear the harmony in the counterpoint! It is just a disorderly cacophony. And common sense tells you that the instruments of those times could not have functioned at the speed of modern instruments.
Fink reminds me of most parents in the 1950's in the US when "rock and roll" took pop music by storm. It turned the lovely ballads of the previous 20-30 years into wildly fast simplistic songs repeated ad nauseum with rarely more than one verse between. Dances went from graceful foxtrots and elegant walzes to little more than fast gyrations with little or no "steps" involved. It was a time that forever changed the world of popular music. I see that as a direct parallel to the 1830's with the dawn of the Industrial Age with its steam engines and ever faster trains replacing the horse drawn carriage for distant travels. Every thing was new and exciting AND faster. It only makes sense from a sociological point of view that musical performance should reflect the culture of its day. In my 63 years on this earth I can see the drive for everything to be faster: cars, the Concorde jet, high speed "bullet" trains and most recently the computer. Who in their right mind would have suggested 50 years ago that powerful computing skills would be available in sizes half that of a cigarette pack that also were telephones and high definition video & still cameras - all in one unit? I find the concept of how the metronome and its predecessor pendulum was used to be a valid understanding of the metronome markings of the pre-1830 era. The minuet was slower than the fox trot and so the swim and the twist were faster than both. In summation, music is not static. I believe each age has its own "sensibilities" of tempo and interpretation. We need to acknowledge that if we are to define historical accuracy as different from contemporary practices. Let us acknowledge this and enjoy both historic and re-envisioning of all music throughout the ages as it can speak to us in our various cultures and eras.
This is true now for the performances of many composers.... the vanity of putting virtuosity in front of expression...... they want to entertain the audience with tinsel and glitter rather than music.
But that's what some music is. Performers take a piece of music and make it their own. Its not vanity, it is performance. A musical artwork can only be art through a performers lens, and a huge amount of Classical music was designed to entertain as well as be a piece of art.
They might want to think about the audience instead of "making it their own"---a romantic conceit. Baroque/classical times had musos as servants. The listeners (!?!) had to "make the music their own". :-) pop, rock, classical and jazz performers recording in the XXth c. had to sell records to live on. They were acutely aware of what sold and what didn't.
Wim, this is the stuff of "Gold Mines"! What the ego hates most is evidence that teaches everything they feared most: That the "common, vulgar plebs" are now on an equal footing to them. They were taught that they were the BEST of the BEST, and it turns out that a lot of us can be quite exceptional because of the truth!!! I can't say it enough, but thanks to you, Anja (and the supporting roles your littl'uns play) for this marvelous awakening after a half century of being told in so many words that "we're not worthy". There's LOTS more info out there, and it will be found, and then BAM! Lots of great musicians can take the stage back from the computers. Cheers!
@@Raherin I'm sorry that you're disheartened. If I offended you, I apologise. Please forgive me. My post was not personally aimed at you, Derek Bunyak. By the way, Derek, it was G.W. Fink A.D. 1839 who "titled" this work. Mr. Fink was a bit more polemic in his writing then than I was today. Many of us are pleased that music is indeed for the masses, not just a select few who maintain a "status quo" and get to "define" what virtuosity is in the 21st century. Well, my friend, apparently Mr. Fink had another definition in mind of what it meant to be a true virtuoso, and since this gentleman rubbed elbows with Liszt, etc., I think his definitions are a wee bit more important than any modern definitions related to this exegesis. Herr Beethoven said two centuries hence that "To play a wrong note is insignificant; to play without passion is inexcusable". I don't mind trading in a few klinkers for a few tears; I'll do it every day of the week. Thank you for your feedback. Again, sorry for the feathers ruffled.
@Derek, I know what you mean and you're absolutely right in the objective world of facts: how much I'd wish to sit down with someone like Andras Schiff and go through the sonatas in double beat, he for sure would do amazing things. See Tom's point in the perspective of daily practice where indeed you'll have standards based on how fast someone can or cannot play.
You are right. I get a lot of pushback from my friends who are professional pianists or graduated from top conservatories. When I say that the Chopin etudes should be played double beat, or much slower than they do, the immediately dismiss it without even hearing the reasons why! They worked so hard their entire lives to play them at the breakneck speed and are proud of the fact that they can play them and few others can. The last thing they want to hear is that they are playing the wrong AND many more people can play them when played correctly.
One more note on the #23 K488 and the interesting conversation that may arise on the bases of interpretation of "Allegro assai" of which the third movement was marked. Here is one historic interpretation shared by Beethoven: A quote from the " New Edition " by Joseph Nicol Scott (1764): "Assai (in music books) is always joined with some other word to weaken the strength or signification of the word to which it is joined. Thus, for example, when it is joined with the words vivace, allegro or presto, all of which denote a quick movement; it signifies that the music must not be performed quite so brisk or quick, as each of these words, if alone, would require: again, being joined to either of the words, adagio, grave or largo, which all denote a slow movement, it intimates that the music must not be performed quite so slow as each of those words, if alone, would require."
Wouldn't it be easier to then just write " ma non troppo " instead of 'weakening' the other word which in turn would result in a slower tempo? It seems to me a weird construct, from a logical perspective..
@@MatthieuStepec Also, but Inspired's source and a different source suggested what Beethoven "meant" ... remember that word do change, and especially in the US, the race to coin the "euphemism" is all the rage. What would 200 years do to a word in order to prove a point?
Always loved Don Giovanni. When I first heard it, I couldn't sleep for having the meeting of the earthly Don and celestial Comandante running through my head. There is something abnormal in these lines that cry for resolution. I have never been so affected than when the Stone Guest mentions his celestial food. It was a very different fare, and it was delicious.
I am very happy to see that new young girl preferring to compose in the classical style, her style. Already a violin, piano concerto and a short Opera and full length Opera performed around the world now, plus other pieces under her belt at the age of 13. And the thing I notice about her work is that she draws out the music, it isn't rushed, bought to a conclusion too soon. I she is true to melodic line. Alma Deutscher, still very young, will no doubt grow and mature, and produce some interesting music in the future, but a good start by her.
thanks Wim. It is interesting the number of pianist that suffers from performing injuries namely: tendonitis, carpal tunnel syndrome and dystonia --the worst of the lot. Could this be because pianist are damaging their hands an nervous systems thorough the overuse and overwork required to achieve these warp-speed tempos.
yes, they strive for something that is beyond physically possible and therefore cause damage to their system, you'll always have a happy few, but the majority will talk about this
AuthenticSound can you back that up with sum citations. It seems improbable that the musical armagedon that this commentsextion seems to think isncurrently underway could proceed if it was physically impossible to play at those speeds.
Is mozart aeternam of the requirem and lacrimosa also in different tempo? If so, I'd like to hear aeternam and lacrimose in their orijinal form. I always want to slow down by half the first of the Aeternam, but I'm not sure about second and third part, especially third part sounds better fast.
one of my most favorite videos ever - such a MAJOR revelation !! - since childhood, I've always had a problem with fully embracing Mozart's music - so much sounded too hurried and frantic to me ! - such a joy to now know why !
One hypothesis: 1. what if non-musical concertgoers CAN'T TELL (or don't care, or are insensitive) about the tempo of the music? As long as they recognize the tune, have something they can hum on the way home. I fear that reflex of « épater les bourgeois » may even be present among some performers. 2. Boredom/impatience. When one becomes adept at execution, a faster performance is easier to demonstrate/measure than a better performance. The proverbial "they wouldn't recognize a better performance, even if it slapped them across the face". :-) Tempo is essential to dancers and singers, if it's too fast enjoyment and intelligibility suffer. But when there are no lyrics, and no dancing, 3. some may be of the opinion "best to get it over with _as quickly as possible_. Especially parents or teachers and some performers too, who have grown impatient with hearing the piece over and over again. 4. Another argument can be made from economics: it isn't that slower/faster tempi are better, it is that they are fashionable (see Grampp, _Pricing the Priceless: Art, Artists and Economics_ (1979 ?, Basic Books). Avec un beau bonjour d'Ottawa, au Canada.
Someone mentioned the Hammerklavier sonata by Beethoven as an example of double-beat failure, but, as I was watching and listening masterclasses and so on, there was one matter that always came to conversation, the metronome marking of the first movement, Andras Schiff says in his lectures that this is for showing the spirit needed for that movement, Mr. Winters has said constantly that the metronome markings are in fact exact (I'd love have the bibliography for that, and I apologize if you already have mentioned it). Claudio Arrau about this said that played that fast would destroy the spirit and power of the piece. Well, I think hearing that movement in double-beat would be very interesting, considering that this way of counting make the metronome numbers logical. Now, I share the opinion that for some pieces this causes a strange effect that sounds unnatural (at least for our "modern" ears), I mean terribly long silences and gigantic fermatas. Certainly is hard to believe that people of 1770's played faster to we do today, but is also strange to think that everybody played that slow (again to our modern ears), I mean, instruments were and are capable of resisting high speeds (even to our "modern" standars), we have to have in mind that Mozart improvised a huge amount of embellishments (there are proofs of that), so using a slower (to us) tempo would be more useful in order to use different articulation and dynamic contrasts, but another thing that I think we have to have in mind is that speed is also a way of expressing, there are beautiful fast things and ugly fast thing, same thing for slow things. I don't know if every fast movement by Beethoven work in a very slow tempo, because (and as a difference with Mozart) sometimes his music and his way of writing keyboard music is more an effect than a melodic line (also with Liszt, Chopin, Schumann and so on).
Just listen to Gould's Mozart. It's amazing the display of virtuosity he can reach (for example) in the K.310 manteinig the clarity still. But that is clearly a "musical provocation" so tipical of him, showing his very personal way wich works btw and is fine but if what we want to obtain is a sound as close as possible to the composer intentions than this work of research of yours is extremely interesting and necessary. So thank you again for you videos!
It seems to me that Tomášek's metronome numbers, even just on their own and on musical grounds, leave only a scintilla of doubt that one must interpret them as double-beat. Bolstering the argument with Fink's approval of those numbers surely eliminates the scintilla. So I think we can say QED about your conclusion. Well done, Wim! On another point: It may be that Fink was correct that a sort of "show off" virtuosity contributed to Mozart tempi in his day that he thought were too fast. Today, however, HIP tempi that are sometimes so fast that the music gets strangled are probably chosen not for the sake of virtuosity display, but rather because the conductor wants to demonstrate that s/he is informed by the best scholarship. Or, in some cases, it may be that the conductor thinks the music is more exciting or dramatic played that way. The former indicates a conductor who is actually min-informed; the latter someone who is simply a poor conductor.
Wim, a great video with a very solid set of arguments (ok, Fink voice, a bit OTT ;) ) . I think I mentioned it before that even without looking for the real tempo of the Mozart music today we are witnessing performances of virtuosity that lose big time on sentiment. I dont know if this is any sort of loss of influence from the 'romantic era', but it certainly says something about our era that prefers speed to sentiment. By the way what is your opinion about Arturo Michellangeli? In my uuntrained ears it sounds as if he hadnt fallen into this 'trap'.
All the big performers fell into this trap because they needed to make a living and impress the audience rather than present the music as music. They would literally race around giving concerts and the more people they could rake in on the concert circuit, the more money they would bring in for the managers and for themselves. But sadly this hasn't changed... I saw this firsthand with a modern orchestra and a famous one at that. They performed the complete Bach Brandenburg Concertos. They took tempos that were so fast that they made mistakes. The G-major concerto No. 3, for example, left me feeling as though I was going to pass out from nerves. The finale was so fast that they were skipping beats when they took the repeats. My neighbor who brought me to the concert turned to me before I said anything and said "They played that way too fast!" Another person said to me she felt exhilarated, but she admitted she knew nothing about the music, which means exactly why they played so fast - to impress the audience and take in the dough.
On this point I agree w/ you. There's a huge difference when your main objective is impressing a paying audience for your own reputation vs. showing the music the respect the composer intended.
Again, Wim! We are certain of our facts not so much by those who believe us, but by those who don't. Think about it. You're spot on; you've been spot on, and you'll continue to be spot on! Keep doing what you're doing! You are making a difference - a HUGE difference! Godspeed!
It would be healty for everyone if the double beat research could answer every argument against it. It would leave (finally) the classicals in peace. Why try to play Mozart, Chopin and friends at lightspeed when contemporary repertoire is technically far more demanding than the classical? If you want a technical challenge...well, play a Rautavaara Concerto instead of playing Mozart concerti alla breve. Sad to see historical fortepianist like Van Oort and Brautigam (who I admire) repeating the same pattern...as if fortepianos where just lighter pianos for playing even more faster. Hopefully the HIP will someday stop supporting the lack of research on these topics and using historical instruments only for commercial purpouse.
I mean, Wim's doing a lot of research, but you can't just discount the research of _all_ HIP performers and musicologists. It's just insulting and ignorant to do that, because these people work incredibly hard. And if Wim's right, then good on him; other people were preoccupied elsewhere.
@@klop4228 I didn't meant to insult the HIP, just trying to complain about how toxic and harmful the music enviroment has become in the pursue of the fastest execution on any given piece. Many pianist use the lighter fortepiano mechanic to play even faster than modern pianos and that is very harmful to classical music. I do admit I forgot to say that those musicians, in most cases, have nothing to do with the HIP and research...they just try to get on the fastest horse.
Great. But in the end what was the double beat (2 metronom beats = 1 reference measure beat) tempo (claimed and approved) giving ? I wished we heard the aria; because, ultimately, what matters is the feeling of the music, isn't it ?
Try this experiment---go listen to a Mozart symphony, or a Mendelssohn piece(2 composers that are often played far too fast) that's labelled "Presto" and drop the tempo 5%,10%, or even 15%---You'll see how much better the music sounds. Do the reverse with the slow movements. SO much better. The problem with playing things too fast is lose the power, and you have nowhere to go. If you hold back a little, then you can speed up in the CODA etc /use speed as a dynamic construct for when you need it. Contrariwise, if you drag a tempo down too much, you dont get "More passion"---you drag the melody into the ground and make it sound like a funeral/destroy the flow of the melody in the piece.
I’ve sang Leporello many times and in many different productions and I have to say I’ve sung many times the speed of the second example. (And that piece, by the way, is not an “aria”, as you hear the other singers as well, it’s a sextet)
I’m not a musician at all but for me Ricardo Mutti’s Don Giovanni feels just right...! I’ve heard other and somehow the timing on this one feels natural!
I find that most classical orchestras and pianists play fast movements far too fast, and perform the slow movements far too slowly--- like a funeral. Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata(The 2nd movement) is a prime example. Here's the rule I go by: " If you're playing a slow movement, imagine a singer singing the melody---Singers have to breath, so if a singer cant sing the melody of the tempo you're playing, you're going too slowly.
I completely agree, it is clear without doubt that today's interpretations are stressful and exiting. They, unfortunately, well represent our era's spirit who gave birth to industrial society based on speed and performance and competition. Speed is mesurable and this well fits to our countability mentality. I was not this way in the past, not even clocks would would match from one village to the other and nobody cared. Speed and punctuality just did not matter that much in daily life, so why should they matter in music?
Of course! Much earlier actually. Tower clocks were already there in 1300. In Italy they belonged to the different corporations of workers that would "gong" in specific moments of the day connected to a specific working necessity. That was the beginning of a society based on human time and not divine only time; bells would ring not only for prayers moments but for work as well. Despite that though, the absolute precision we live today that causes the problems Wim from @AuthenticSound underlines was not there. That is one of the reasons for which I agree with him. It's intuitive... 1300 is considered the century that actually created many of the things we call modern in our society such as banks, universities, business enterprises and much more...
I see some play K246 way too fast, especially on the modern piano which has a much more sustained sound, Mozart complained about it on the contemporary pianos in his own day.
The best way to find the true tempi would be to have a seance where everybody holds hands around a table and Mozart's spirit appears and knocks the table so that you can hear the original tempi of whatever piece they ask him.
:). In fact it is much simpler, we have dozens and dozens of MM of musicians who were very close to him, and contrary to what most today 'believe', they were considered to be exact tempo indications. Moreover, the reconstruction of tempi from Bach to Beethoven (and beyond) starting from the notation and tempo ordinario surprisingly (or not...) does not point to many mysteries.
@@AuthenticSound I heard there is also the mystery of pitch, whether pieces were played at a lower pitch that they are today -- A 440 was not their standard pitch. Pitch and tempi are important for the feel of the piece of music, and maybe that feel is lost today as well.
Around 1839-1840s time frame, Czerny published his Op. 500, "Complete Theoretical and Practical School". In there he gives his well known metronome markings. Thinking back on this, I wonder if he too was trying to set the table straight in a bit more subtle way than Fink coming out with his article, or perhaps Czerny did this as backup for Fink in the hopes that future generations of pianists would follow the lead and use his published tempo markings.
well done. Very persuasive. BTW, what Don G recording comes the closest to what you figure Mozart would have conducted it at? That was a reference that I thought was obvious and which I would like to hear your suggestions for. Perhaps Karl Bohm's Mozart? I don't know....
I don`t know anything about musicology studies on classical music tempi, but as an engineer, I would assume that there might be a variation on the construction of the metronomes and that such variation could lead to disparities in the tempo marking. Meaning that 80BPM in one metronome could be 90BMP in another. Without a proper experiment to calibrate the metronome and measure how accurate its tempo is there is no way to know if their metronomes beat corresponds to the same ones we have in modern metronomes, which I believe that are much more accurate. We can`t achieve 100% accuracy in anything, but thought calibration we can determine the measurement error range, up to a probabilistic certainty level of your choosing. Higher certainty would mean a wider range for error. They did have mechanical watches/clocks at the time and it could be used as a reference for calibrating the metronome, but then you would have to calibrate the clock itself with a proper time reference, which I have no idea what it could be. My point is, we don't know for sure if 100BPM in Fink's metronome is the same as 100BPM in Tomaschek metronome and the same as 100BPM in our modern metronomes. Also, we can't know for a fact how much discrepancy there is between these instruments. One might argue that this difference wouldn't be significant. I don't know, I am not an expert in anything, but it seems to me that we can't really know for sure, and that should be accounted for. Anyway, I don't think that could explain why Fink approved Tomascheck crazy fast tempo markings, but it might be a part of the explanation. By the way, great story. Thank you for sharing, I didn't know any of that. Just wanted to give my perspective on this "mystery", I didn't want to sound petulant.
Early 19th c. that come in for restoration these days are all the same, with maximum amount of being 'off' about 5%. So they are all still surprisingly accurate. Also MM for variety of works and over decades are pretty consistent as well.
We're not talking about abstract unites. We're talking about BPM. People had clocks and watches, checked the time with each other, made music with each other. Small variation is possible, but it's easy to imagine that any bigger one would be noticed
Looks like I'm the only one(unless he cleans comments), who can't get why this guy added fragment from Don Giovanni at the beginning with doubling normal tempo, such obvious fool. And the demagogy of first ten seconds, I was kinda new, but I can already say the there are something sactiligious
yes, look at the Schlesinger editions. Don't know if they are all on IMSLP, Lorenz Gadient has them all (you can see them on the video I did with him going through his books)
@@AuthenticSound I can't see this edition on IMSL. Which was the video you were referring to? Really I want to get a metronome mark for "La Vendetta" (Figaro) and for the Sarastro arias.
As an opinion piece this is a very interesting video. But at the end of the day it is all a matter of taste. This video reflects the authors taste, not the actual evidence. There is evidence for all kinds of speeds. But also, speed of music is partly determined by the venue, acoustic, type of performance, the players, number of players (big vs large orchestra). From a practical point of view, sometimes music that has a fast tempo can still sound relaxed, other times if a faster tempo is too hard for a performer then it will sound too fast even if that actual tempo isnt particularly fast. There is a such a psychological impact to how we perceive whether a tempo is good or bad that its very difficult to push onto other a "correct" speed. Music requires performers to turn the dots into music. And different performers will apply different interpretations, there is a line where the composer ends and the performer takes over where the composer "gifts" their work over to the performers to turn it into music. Without that you may as well just give it to a machine to perform.
Commentary with metronome markings from a half century after Mozart's death is interesting, but why disregard the evidence from the composer himself? Mozart indicated a general tempo by providing the meter and the general speed (andante, allegro, largo, etc.). Music treatises from the period, included that of Mozart's own father, Leopold, provide good perspective. Leopold gives his reader ways to tell the tempo of a piece. In the period before metronomes existed, these were the how performers understood the tempo that the composer wanted. So any discussion of tempo should start with Mozart's own indications in his autograph scores. For example, the beginning of the overture to Don Giovanni should not be played slowly (or very fast). It is marked andante with the alla breve meter. It must be felt in two, with a moderate tempo in which one normally walks (andante). People certainly have different taste and preferences. But when performing the music of this great genius, why not defer to his taste and preference?
What assurance is there that the metronomes of that time were anywhere close to being accurate? I have owned quite a few mechanical and even some electronic metronomes by Wittner and others that differed greatly from my quartz wristwatch. Only since I got a Seiko quartz metronome can I trust the tempi.
the ones that are coming in for restoration are 5% off at maximum. There is not a real way for them to really be 'off'. Also, the reference of 60= 1 second was set to test it, and finally, the 1000s of MM we have from that period are remarkable in line with each other.
Well, I just wondered, because I've had some that were pretty bad. Two spring to mind: A Wittner electronic that lost tempo as the battery drained (it was much more than 5% off at times!) And a mechanical Wittner 'Junior' with a bad “limp”: The beats were of unequal length. But although I do consider 5% off to be just about unusable, I understand that it wouldn't have much bearing on the main issue here.
@@QoraxAudio I have exactly that one, except mine is over 40 years old, and it always had a “limp”. If I put it on a slanted surface (like the upturned lid), I can make it “walk straight”, but it isn’t very accurate. Have you tried setting yours to 60 and counted with it to 60, comparing it to a normal watch? You shouldn’t be too surprised if it’s off..
@@skakdosmer Yes I have compared it with my watch collection. *IF* it's slightly off, it's not noticeable within a minute or two. Have you accidentally dropped it some time? The mechanics inside seem to be quite fragile; all steel axles that have zero suspension. Or maybe dust/debris has entered through the grill behind the weight? Or maybe it just needs some oil?
Unfortunately, many classical compositions seem to be treated like Hanon exercises these days, where speed rather than content becomes the goal. With any piece of music, there is a point where the tempo interferes with the ability to express the mood of the composition properly. Where that point is, is very subjective and maybe that is why many composers were vague about tempo indications - leaving it up to the performer to decide at what speed they can best bring out the beauty and meaning of the piece.
Wim, super video. Regarding your previous video on the Beethoven Prestissimo, can you put PianoPat right on what he says about your ignoring counter-evidence? He summarises this in his post. I don't have the depth of knowledge to deal with it properly.
Thank you Peter. Pianopat and I called each other, he's a nice guy and I understand it takes time to open this window completely. I suggested as a reaction to read the entire article by Fink. It is so common for people who try to come up with counter arguments, to narrow the topic down to one small point, make an assumption and then start from that assumption as a new fact. We'll have to live with the idea that will happen now and for years to come. Let's focus on inspire people, musicians, listeners, just offer them a guide line for a possible truth, a path to beauty in my mind and respect the differences. In this case, the context is so strong, that it should be able to defend itself! Hope this clarifies a bit my position these days, thank you for being here with me on this topic!
In the 1970s, when progressive rock music had reached its decadence, the ability to play the electric guitar fast was regarded as the sign of a virtuoso.
Thank you for yours answer and your link to this video. Now I see your point and understand your argument which I had misunderstood before, because I had not seen that it is about the full beat vs. half beat-topic. This is really convincing.
Wim I agree with you. No composer would indicate tempo that would make a musician sing as if they were speaking at 120 syllables per second. It just does not make sense. They indicated the tempo as they wished the compositions to be played. They were humans, not gods. They took their own compositions to heart. Tempo indicated everything about how they envisioned their music, their insights, and their emotions should be played. I Find it rather arrogant to think that composers didn't care enough about their works that they would leave it to others to do as they pleased.
Why is "30%" how much faster it must have been performed in 1839? 30% is the difference between 100bpm and 130bpm - that's a huge difference in tempo. If it was only 8-10% faster than Tomaschek's tempo, that might be quite plausible as a too-quick performance tempo. The figure of 30% is too great to rest the argument, on in my opinion.
10% is not a big enough of a gap to be called 'way too fast' or to be as outraged as Fink was in his article. Read it, it is really really strong. And you know, already the Tomascheck tempi, without addition are called 'foolish' by even the die-hard single beat defenders. But these tempi were not foolish to Fink, that's the core essence of the story.
@AuthenticSound I think an inference from Fink's level of outrage in his article to a particular level of increased tempo is a bit tenuous, if you'll forgive me for saying so. In any case, when a piece is already at a fairly quick tempo, you do not need much of a % increase in speed to suddenly make it noticeably faster. As for the point about standard performance speeds, I here copy across a comment from the previous time this Tomaschek issue was dicussed on Authentic Sound (March 2017), from another commentor, Rowan Williams: "I really feel that this representation of Tomaschek's tempi is not a balanced one. The very fast example here (around 6.12), the sextet "Mille Torbidi Pensieri" from Act 2, is set by Tomaschek at minim (half note) = 112. This is a really steady tempo by most performance standards. Even Karajan (not known for speed) takes it at 120 in his 1987 production with Samuel Ramey. The huge majority of Tomaschek's metronome marks are very similar to standard modern performance practice, some a little faster, some a little slower. It is the slow arias which are often marked faster by T, not the allegro ones. This tendency fits other evidence from the 18th - 19th centuries. The only real surprise is "Deh Vieni" which he sets much, much faster than we are used to. To add 30% to the tempi is a huge over- compensation I would suggest. Even 10% would be quite a lot! And we cannot know that Fink considered every part of the opera to be too fast."
Rowan Williams After some reflection, and following the intervention of other musicians in the channel comments, i have come to the view that the available evidence is not strong enough to support a theory as revolutionary as double beat. As someone once said “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”, and i feel that while there are some interesting arguments there is no evidence or argument strong enough to justify double beat as a theory that applies to any well-known composers. I think the unconscious motivation in formulating the theory is as follows. Suppose you start in music as an organist (a more sight-reading-oriented discipline than piano) and become a good sight reader. It would be natural to expect then to be able to more or less sight-read most works if one transfers to the piano. However, music after Mozart got more complex and ambitious, and the only way one can sight-read or learn it very quickly is by slowing it down a lot. Therefore a theory is developed that allows you to do so.
Fink's words are "wild, barbaric, whipped into distortion, raging, ...". However much it was, this does indicate a really strong deviation in tempo felt by Fink, I believe.
@@torstenhefer3118 I just don't think this sort of reasoning is a very secure base on which to rest an argument about double beat metronome interpretation. (For a start, people who write academic articles are apt to inflate small differences to seem bigger than they are.) With no offence to those who advocate "double beat" based on these sorts of arguments, it al seems a bit tenuous - like clutching at straws. I am sure that some people were in 1839 performing Mozart in ways that were either too fast or too wild - this cannot be an argument for performing Mozart at half of the single beat tempo (of Tomaschek).
I for one am convinced by this. The speeds that the musicologists advocate are mostly ridiculous. This music was composed to be played by performers whose techniques had been honed on the WTC and Mozart and Haydn. The pieces and etudes by Liszt and others that enabled pianoforte technique to play at this speed were yet to be composed. The idea that pianists had a technique for playing which has now been lost is hilarious. Perhaps that had been coached by aliens from the planet Zob. The ability was lost when they took the Space Tram home. I don't think that the Musicologists know what they are talking about. They just don't like being contradicted by the lower orders. Rules is Rules. They are either unable to see past their theories or they just have cloth ears.
This guy is an idiot. These were no metronome markings up until 19th century so his theory doesnt even make sense for that. Even then the countless works by brahms, Beethoven, Chopin are meant to be played in the metronome markings. Mozart never even gave tempo markings no musicolgists believe Don givioni is meant to be played as in the intro. This theory is so damn stupid and the guy just cherry picks certain pieces that don't sound too bad at a slower tempo(Even then he plays them faster than his theory says), ignores all historical documentation including instructions on how to use a metronome. Hell you even have recordings of Liszts students playing at the full tempo, and even recordings of the composers them selves like Brahms, Debussy, Saint Sains e.t.c playing even faster than is normal today
@ mac tire No this will not do. Putting to one side the intemperate language which hardly helps a sensible debate if you have a strong view give facts and evidence not vague vapourings and waffle. "But everyone knows that" is not valid evidence. The world of 1814 when the metronome was invented was so different from ours that it is hard to put ourselves in their mindset. Everything was smaller, slower, softer. Everything was on a more human scale. Most people had never traveled more than 50 miles from their birth place. A galloping horse would be the fastest speed they knew, a thunderclap the loudest sound. Yet we are asked to believe that they suddenly started adopting speeds that were only possible to players who had been through the revolution in piano technique started by Liszt and Chopin. I know it is hard for a Pianist to think like a musician but can you not hear that these speeds mangle the music. We need to put music back on a human scale. More intimate slower softer gentler. If you have a moment listen to the performance of the six Schumann canonic etudes played on a small Cavaille Coll organ by Fabre Guin in a Paris Chapel.. This is as near perfection as you can get.
@@johnsilverton639 lol no all these pieces are perfectly playable at the tempo markings and from the earliest recordings we have some dating from the 19th century performers of the time played just as fast if not even faster, all you need his good technique. On top of that we have the recorded time of Mozart's and Beethoven's works and they last as we would expect them to (by winters theory a mozart opera would be 6-8 hours long) directly disproving his theory. And no you can leave this nonsense of 19th century people being too slow these literally no evidence of double beat theory, all winters has is one random music critic's reconciliation of what the tempo don givioni was 40 years after hearing it, then taking this tempo(which isn't much different to modern tempo) and applying it to the most fastest part of a 4 hour opera to make it sound bad(we have no idea where this critic recalled it being at that tempo since the opera changes tempo through out but presumably at the beginning which sounds fine at that tempo) EVEN THEN mozart never even gave a tempo marking, modern performers are basing their Interpretation on the tradition that has been passed down and understanding of musicology not any tempo markings so his theory doesn't even apply here. We have literal quotes of Wagner saying how long his pieces last which allign perfectly with modern performances, we have recordings of some composers themselves and their students playing at full tempo and not a single mention of peope using the metronome as duoblebeats(How are you suppose to use the metronome on uneven time signatures or wouldnt t work). If you prefer to listen/play music at slower tempo fine go ahead but don't claim that's the intedened tempo of the composers NO it's not and stop with this BS 'real historical tempi" from one guy on UA-cam with a half baked theory
mac tíre It comes down to this. Either your Musicianship and Inner Ear tell you that he is right or you do not possess these two essential items. Without them you are free to concentrate on approaching warp speed in everything you play.
@@AuthenticSound I watch one of your vids maybe every day!! Tempo of the masters is such an important component to our understanding of their intentions and original expression of muse. Please keep posting these wonderful and important studies. Cheers:)
Very intersting! But wasn't Mozart (and Rossini) operas partly based on singer's virtuosity, and their ability to sing a fast and clear line?? Could the tempo of some parts be "as fast as possible" like in later Chopin's works???
Thank you. You know, words like 'fast' are relative to a context. Trains ca 1830 were described as we today would describe a space shuttle, yet today we can reach those speeds of 27 km/h with an electric bike. The bell canto style and ornamentation indeed was to showcase a kind of virtuosity, but that didn't affect (at least until 1830-1840) the overall natural and more 18th century type tempi
The charlatans are still with us. Mozart's well known piano concerto (K.488) - I heard on radio a few weeks back. I imagine it is the latest release of a certain virtuoso (who shall remain nameless!). The fast tempo is totally inappropriate. It gives the impression the only reason for the performer playing the work is to get to the end as soon as possible! True the first movement is marked allegro - but it is played nearer presto - And the third movement is marked allegro assai (sufficiently fast)i. Despite this, that final movement is hurried through as if it were marked prestissimo. The results are an appalling act of musical vandalism
I think it's important to remind ourselves that there is such a thing as artistic freedom. If somebody want's to play super fast he should feel free to do so, and if he want's to play super slow that's his right too. And if you don't like it, that's okay as long as you don't patronize him. Personally I tend to think that most slow pieces are played or sung much too fast, whereas much fast music isn't performed fast enough. But sometimes there's a musician who does everything moderato, which I'm normally against, but in a way that's very pleasant. And I rejoyce in the fact that we don't have to search for any “truth” or any “correct” tempo, and that very different interpretations can be equally good. At the very end of the 1985 movie “Runaway Train” (starring Jon Voight and Eric Roberts) there's a Russian choir singing some grand and slow music - which it took me several minutes to recognize as a piece that I knew very well: “et in terra pax hominibus” from Vivaldi's Gloria in D, RV589, but sung at maybe a third of the tempo that the composer probably intended. But it sounded great!
@AuthenticSound Check the "The UCSB cylinder audio archive" Of the university of Santa Barbara and search "Galvany mozart" in the search box. Ok, it's not don Giovanni, but a hint of the "ancient" style is there. Just wait for the coloratura there ;-) Greetings, Rolf, netherlands.
Common sense is often the less common. Rushing Mozart can only lead to disaster, and to an unfair distortion of his music. An example I know well is the Requiem. The three first movements are often played insanely fast, especially the Introitus. Not because that speed is impossible to sing, but because the Introitus is a funeral march. It is suppossed to be slow-paced, full of grief, solemnity, and respect. Next, singing the Kyrie eleison at insane speeds is a crime. The semi quavers and staccato of this magnificent double fugue get aboslutely lost, along with the emotional message of the agonizing increasing plea which Mozart abruptly ends with the terrifying vii7/V chord to show the shock of facing the inevitable: death. None of this is possible when rushing. The same happens with the Dies Irae, and the imbecilic argument is that it conveys the end of the world, therefore -they assume, it has to happen insanely fast. No one says Mozart's music should be then played excessively slow, it is a matter of common sense. Compare this ua-cam.com/video/TFPZtl0DqNs/v-deo.html to this ua-cam.com/video/e5cv00YFENE/v-deo.html So going back to the point: Common sense should indicate the most appropriate tempo in Mozart's works, considering all the factors in which his works are embedded.
I'm not really sure why you think singing at that speed is impossible. The recording sped up to that degree is annoying to the ear, but only because it is a recording sped up and the vibratos were increased in speed as well. 9 syllables a second is perfectly possible as are 12 syllables a second, especially in Italian.
Good sung or stage Italian is not so fast. In good Italian there are many stops and elongated consonants. eg "contento" - "kont:tent:to", or if at the beginning of a phrase in singing "k:kont:tent:to"; "terra" - "terrrra". Many modern Italian singers are not as articulate as they should be.
@@petertyrrell3391 While that might be true, the claim I'm responding to is whether singing at such a speed is impossible. Not whether we prefer to hear Italian sung at such a speed.
@@PhilosophicalDance Ok, but I would be surprised if you can get more than 6 vowels or 6 vowel consonant combinations in one second. I think French is faster, and possibly English as well.
Well, 9 syllables per second is actually not possible. Perhaps you can do it for 1 second, but not for entire pages. Let alone faster. Just try to count to 9 in one second. Even if you could, what idiot of a composer would want to destroy the libretto in that way...
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Isn't it ironic? I'm watching this video at 1.5 speed. Still not too fast.
I hate to do this, as I really do like your theory, but I have some more evidence against this... I was listening to Gardiner's recording of the Eroica (45 mins 'Period Performance') and a comment mentioned that people back in the day said it took an hour to perform. Naturally, I was sceptical, given your theory, and decided to do some digging. Ended up here: www.beethovenseroica.com/Pg2_hist/history.html This source quotes (a little past halfway, in the 'First Performance' section) the _Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung,_ which gives a review of the piece. Among other things (all interesting, but not to this point), saying that it's really long, lasting a full hour. Again, I thought it would be best to check the original source. Fortunately, the page cites it as the issue of the _Zeitung_ from the 1st May 1805, so I did some digging and found the thing on archive.org (here: archive.org/details/bub_gb_Bd4qAAAAYAAJ), did some digging and found May 1st. The relevant passage is on page 290 in the file (just scroll along the bottom, or add /page/n289 to the end of the url) about halfway down the leftmost column, where it says (this being part of what the link above quotes and translates): [...] aber die Sinfonie würde unendlich gewinnen, _(sie dauert eine ganze Stunde)_ wenn sich B. entschliessen wollte sie abzukürzen, und in das Ganze mehr Licht, Klarheit und Einheit zu bringen; [...] (emphasis, mine) Basically, the brackets say that the Eroica lasts an hour. What is interesting to note is that the same entry does say that Beethoven himself conducted the hour-long performance and that Gardiner's recording (which uses his later metronome markings) is, with the repeat, only 45 minutes long. Even if we say that B.'s recording included the repeat, he's still doing it on average about 75% the tempo. So that's something, I suppose. But there's no way they played it at half the tempo Gardiner performs it at, because where did that half hour go? Anyway, that's my main point. It's maybe just one piece of evidence, but it's evidence supporting the status quo, and also, as far as I can tell, crystal clear. I won't say this completely topples your points, but it's pushed me back a little from believing your theory.
Durations are always difficult facts, you'll find that support a single beat interpretation (with similar difficulties as eg Milchmeyer in his pf school for beginners...), durations that have too little references to exact programs, and double beat support (Liszt's Hammerklavier being the most prominent). The Eroica is in the middle I'd say. Anyway: it are the MM that are on top of it all, they must guide any research (and they don't for the single beat side, because most of them are constantly ignored or labeled as misprints)
@@AuthenticSound I suppose that makes a sort of sense, although Beethoven's duration is almost the same as most modern non-HIP recordings (and some are a couple minutes short, which would be made up if they did the repeat). Either way, it clearly shows that Beethoven did not strictly follow his ideas about the tempi, which relates to the 'should you play music exactly as written?' debate.
@@AuthenticSound Do you mind referring me to which video(s) you talk about duration, or at least discussing specific examples further here? I've gotten rather interested.
Urmff, Total length? An average duration? An unreliable measurement. For ex, if the slow movement is taken faster, and the faster movement slower... Too many moving parts. There's also the joke about the person that drowned crossing a river whose average depth was 1 meter. Speculation is atricky tool. Do some stats, do some philosophy, do the math, not the opinions
I consider Arrau's performance of Mozart's F major sonata to be somewhat close to Mozart's intentions. What really caught me off guard is the circle of fifths passage in the first movement, for the first time it didn't sound like secondary dominants casually following each other, but dramatic swings (felt in the subito forte piano) between what i perceived as shifting tonal centers when played at this slower, more considerate tempo. I will also mention Arrau's reputation for artistic and intellectual integrity, so I believe that anyone searching for the true sound of a piece need not converse with anything other than the score. It shouldn't require so much evidence to play musically and truly to the style of the period/composer. Even Mendelssohn once said something along the lines of never needing tempo markings if you're a serious musician. Many of the great musicians played some or many pieces at much thoughtful tempi than today's virtuoso-saturated market, including Bernstein (Brahms especially, Bach too), Arrau as mentioned with mozart example below (also Liszt concerto 1!!!), Radu Lupu (brahms sonata 3), Celibidache (most of everything he conducted, but most notably beethoven 9, also conducted by an elderly Klemperer at a grand tempo). The list can go on forever, no true artist can resist the need for slower tempi for the old pieces, for then the music really speaks. I leave this gem here: ua-cam.com/video/uBs_xq5viJE/v-deo.html
I was convinced back in 2017 after the discussions with Lorenz Gadient. I don't know how any serious musicologists at this point can deny that the double-beat argument/approach is the correct one. This example here lends even more very logical evidence to bolster this view.
Thanks Steven, probably for a musicologist on an academic level to be the first to officially embrace this (and thus cause a revolution) it might be still a bit too early, but who knows? Times do change (and sometimes for the better!)
The thing is, that theory is nonsense. We know how long pieces written in the 18th century were, and the lengths correspond with the tempi, and composers like Brahms that were born during the early 19th century would have been alive to hear the pieces played at the correct tempo (yet the recordings we have of him playing during the late 19th century correspond with correct tempo markings). Then we have the false notion that the advent of trains meant we started to think faster, yet horses were still the fastest means of transportation up until around 1900. Finally, we have the problem that a lot of music when played as slow as this suggests it's supposed to be played is almost impossible to play (since the theory completely ignores wind or string instruments and the concept of singing).
i guess ill just play schuman's schezo from 2nd symphony @ half tempo during an audition and point anyone who questions me to this video (jus kiddin) :P
All musicians that I know that have tried seriously double beat in concerts have the same experience: the audience is a 100% attentive and emotionally hit in a way they've not experienced before
While I completely agree with you that contemporary musicianship can easily be succumbed to sole and extreme obsession for accuracy resulting in a artificial restriction to ease and pressure upon the flow of expressions, virtuosity also necessitates musicality because musicality, even though some men in the dark puts it, can only be achieved with certain techniques rather than occultism or obscure interactions with the instrument.
Just wrong: Finck/Tomascheks Metronome marking is Half note = 112. Your sped up version is not at that speed, but rather at 150, i.e. way faster, in order to make tomaschek seem ridiculous to your viewers. Dont believe this guy, always fact check! The original, un-spedup version is much closer to tomascheks indication.
@@musik350 His accent is annoying? Good grief, he's obviously not speaking his first language. I love hearing people speak English with lots of different accents and I don't mind hearing them speak slowly when they have something to say. Which of the scores of English accents of people for whom it is their first language do you find annoying?
@@anthonymccarthy4164 I don't get your last sentence, furthermore, I'm no native speaker either. It's just a matter of personal opinion. Nice for you that you can enjoy this, but to me, it's unbearable
@@musik350 I think the intelligent thing for someone to do if they find listening to something "unbearable" is to not listen to it. I'm surprised at how many people don't seem to think of that.
It is very easy to witness the assassination of Mozart: just open UA-cam and hear one of the thousands of performances of the Turkish march played at q=144 and more. I am the last person on earth who can discuss the double-beat theory, But I think anyone can easily understand that in those executions there is nothing of a march, and nothing of Turkish.
I would like to add that the pianofortes in the life of Mozart had a much slower hammer action and response, and were more rough and coarse to play. It was when the young Franz Liszt showed acrobatic abilities beyond the action and response of the current keyboards, that the company Erard came up with a new mechanism to exploit Liszt as a showman. It makes no sense to me that someone like Mozart would have composed things with consecutive sounds that his own pianoforte would not allow as separate.
It’s very simple, if you think of the metronome as a pendulum (which it is), one tick is only half of its period of oscillation, or in other words, a swing from the initial position to the right (or left) is only half of the full cycle, thus for example 60 full periods per minute=120 ticks per minute. So we can assume that in the past a 60 on a music score simple referred to metronome oscillations, not ticks.
The vanity of virtuosity is destroying a lot of music, these days as well as in 1839. Many musicians think: faster = better (to show off), and neglect feeling, phrasing, accentuation etc.
I will share a story with you about my years at Juilliard and about tempi in Mozart. At the time of my studies for my degrees there, I frequently ended up on a list of top jury performances at the end of each year. Unfortunately, this meant a delay in the return to my home for the summer months. The delay resulted from the automatic inclusion into a rather politically fixed internal competition which took place each year. That year, the concerto selected by the competition was Mozart's #23 K488. I did not on principal listen to tempi of great pianists and performances recorded in history as I was intent on finding the right tempo and approach of my own. I was amazed at the fast tempi, indeed the same tempo I heard from the many practice rooms I passed on the fifth floor of the school. As I prepared in the weeks before the concerto, I grew more convinced that no music could survive at anything close to the Presto at which the others took the third movement in particular. It became a mad gallop to prove the facility at the piano rather than the sunshine that comes through the clouds after the painfully beautiful second movement of the concerto. As I was walking slowly, reflecting on my performance after the competition was over, I noticed one of the teachers (who was the chair of the department at the time and known by the nickname of Mr. Metronome, ironically) toasting a brandy snifter with his student who was just about to be announced a winner of the competition. Yes, it was not yet official at that moment.
As I passed them, the professor called out to me - "What happened to you in your performance?!"
I replied over my shoulder and stopped to look him in the eye, "What do you mean?"
He said, "Your third movement was much slower then everyone else played it! What happened?"
I answered that I played at the tempo I felt Mozart intended and which expressed his music.
I saw him nod with a sad smile and turn back to his student as I kept on my solitary way.
This memory is curious also because it was after that time that I heard Rubinstein on his RCA recording take the same tempo or one very close to what I chose. There is of course a range that works with different interpretations.
I therefore agree with you on record of my professional life and my choices of integrity over the decades. I am glad you are also a champion of independent and thoughtful research. Your musicianship speaks as loud as your words. Yes, our century has lost much and the loss continues in that direction, much as you say. Best wishes in your work.
Two of my teachers studied there with a more recent teacher attending about a decade ago. My very first teacher studied with Beveridge Webster while he was head of the piano department at New England Conservatory then later when he was dean at Juilliard. She'll be 99 this year God willing, but sadly has dementia, otherwise, I would be showing her these videos.
At a piano concert about 10 years ago, we saw Dimitri Rachmannov playing a Schubert-only concert. During the intermission, she went up to him and said you graduated from Juilliard! He looked at her rather scared because even though she's only about 5 feet tall now, she can be intimidating! ;-) She then went on to say she thought he played well and who she studied with. He looked at me afterwards and went "Whew!" He thought she was going to bring the wrath upon him that many piano teachers can! :-)
Being a family friend, she would visit us during holidays and of course I would play the stuff that I was working on at the time. She kept telling me that I was playing everything too fast. I would tell her that my teacher at the time expected such and such a tempo, given the metronome markings, but she would shake her head and tell me to play it as I want.
Then one day she said something that was interesting, or rather thought provoking. She said that some pianists are born capable of playing brilliantly while others don't have that in their vocabulary. This made sense to me, but she went on to say that Beveridge Webster told her that he felt that "today's" pianists play way too fast with no feeling whatsoever and that everything is all about showing off their technique rather than the music. Then in so many other words, she then went on to say that anyone can play fast and mechanically, and that playing with feeling and slower is far more difficult.
It took some time for this to sink in, and after studying with Wim many years later, and working on pieces by myself now, I'm discovering a whole new world of music, which has been lost. As time has gone on, I find myself eagerly looking back at the slower tempos and today I see a lot more of this than expected in the works by Gottschalk, Schumann, Jadassohn, Chopin, and so many other composers.
To me this makes a lot more sense than whipping along at a breakneck speed which is on the verge of failure 90% of the time. Don't get me wrong. There are places where a fast passage is required, but not everything we play requires that.
Reading about what your professor said to you, it sadly shows that he has fallen into the same show-off trap because the "success" of his student's performance reflects back on him.
Good on you! I heard the comment after my Mozart A minor Sonata (I) K 310 that "[t]here is too much Thomas Hughes in your pieces", and I thought to myself that should we exhume and breath life back into Mozart, then I guess you'd know for sure. Funny how I was SECOND in every competition in front of that adjudicator for two straight years in Chopin Etudes, Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach P/F classes. SECOND! Thanks to Wim, I wear it like a badge of honour and true musicianship, not the monkey awards they give to the most frantic and worthless performances. Beethoven is quoted as saying (I paraphrase) that missing a note is insignificant, but playing without passion is an unpardonable sin!
I think I like second place with Beethoven, truth be told.
@@thomashughes4859 : I've been told the same kind of thing. You play with too much passion as one teacher put it. Huh? You mean playing the music with feeling is the problem?
It seems that pianists are the only performing artists who have to not only play their instruments 100% perfectly 100% of the time, they also have to play without feelings at the fastest tempo possible, and all from memory to boot!
Singers are allowed to go off rhythm, time, and even key, and dancers make up their own steps and it's considered a "nouvelle" approach to a classic, but if a concert pianist does something different, it's not acceptable and the pianist is held accountable 100% for a giving the slightest hint of their personality in an otherwise dry and mechanical performance.
As you can probably tell, I'm not enthused by the latest breed of pianists out there and prefer listening to the golden era pianists such as Horowitz and Rubenstein among others. I think we're too caught up in our mechanical and digital world and forget the artistic and even human side of something creative.
@@Clavichordist You bet, John! Even before Wim (shall we say B.W. - HAHA!!!), I used to add trills, mordents, and even improvise with classical works, Chopin, etc. It sounded like they should have been there, and lo and behold, the more I read, the more "THEY" did, too. Saint Saenz said that the Mozart (EXTREMELY SLOW HE SAID) required the artist to embellish, especially the repeats. At the end of the day, I don't care to win or lose the "battle of the pendulum"; I 'm just tickled pink that I found Wim and all of you who are the real magicians/musicians/artists in the world. I have half a mind to "rent" the orchestra in AGS - or I might have a friend or two in high places - to do even the first movement of the Beethoven 5th. I'm quite the conductor. Tape it, print it, make T-shirts, and do the whole GO Beethoven, slower, scene.
@@Clavichordist Actually I never wrote about any of my teachers in the above story from my life. I was amazingly fortunate and honored to study with some of the best remaining luminaries of music from the very roots of classical music. Yet, although I can trace a direct teacher to student lineage back to Joachim (my first and most important teacher was a student of his direct lineage in violin), Anton Rubinstein, Liszt and thus Beethoven along with some other human gods, it is each of us as musicians that connects to the source. Independently - although inspired and directed - that is as immutable as the fact that one can not teach a talent into existence. One has to be born with it. Taste and style however, must be passed along and taught properly without stifling the individual growth and maturity. These traditions are tragically being aggressively suppressed by several generations of mediocrity in power. There are other factors as well, but it is hopeful that talent can bypass common knowledge and at times lead a person to the original truth.
You sir are a treasure thank you for the videos, the performances, the analysis, the research, thank you to your wife. God bless from Sacramento
Thank you so much Brandon!
I am 85 years old and have been a music lover since early childhood. Throughout that time I have thought that performances of Chopin and Bach were usually too fast. To put it in layman’s terms, crudely but honestly, i have said to companions that the virtuosic playing ‘gobbles up’ the notes so that they cannot be appreciated and that it sounds as though the players were afraid of missing the next bus! One hopes for slower tempi. Congratulations on your well argued thesis.
Thank you so much Barrie!
The same with Rossini. Modern Rossini singers sing the coloraturas like a machine gun.
I've yet to watch the video, still browsing the comments. But the phrase "mouse-click mentality" immediately came to mind. On an everyday life basis, haven't you all noticed the speed of young people's speech? The speed at which they rush you through check-outs? (Unless of course they have to mentally work out the correct change for some reason instead of the till doing it). Have you watched the four and five year old Asian children on You Tube being made to plunk their way robotically through a well known piece at breakneck speed? The speed at which teens and tweenies frantically text and scroll? The insane gabbling of some ads especially on You Tube? I can't follow the slurred speech in movies any more.
Mouse-click mentality.
Look around you. It's everywhere.
Wim, you are the reason why I gave up watching Netflix...
:-)
Though I not always agree with you, Wim, that this or that particular piece should be played in a double-beat way (especially regarding Chopin), here you're absolutely right in my opinion. The Tomaschek double-beat tempo sounds very natural in the Ouverture. The openings chords make more sense than in the usual tempo, and are beautiful, frightening, mysterious and petrifying.
Thank you!
Very interesting indeed. As a pianist, I've always felt most performers took Mozart's sonatas too quickly. I've always preferred the leisurely, intimate tempos of Maria Landowska over the brisk, showy interpretations of say, Horowitz et al. There is a depth of meaning that is lost by too much speed.
I actually think Horowitz has it just right. I know that he studied a great amount of Mozart's writings and the descriptions of tiempi by his contemporaries. Played too slowly, we suffer, played too quickly you lose. Since Mozart's piano music does not have lots of "texture," it is the artist who must play it with feeling, mood and taste. Horowitz does just that.
I'm glad to see other professionals musicians being aware of the fact that during Baroque and Clasical, the average tempo was not a mad Horse race. I've always thought that lots of baroque fugues and pieces, classical symphonies, Ouvertures, opera's etc. are performed too damn fast and the subtle beauty and the harmonic complex poliphony is almost completely lost or ununderstandable. Good to see you reiterate it time to time :D
This guy is an idiot. These were no metronome markings up until 19th century so his theory doesnt even make sense for that. Even then the countless works by brahms, Beethoven, Chopin are meant to be played in the metronome markings. Mozart never even gave tempo markings no musicolgists believe Don givioni is meant to be played as in the intro. This theory is so damn stupid and the guy just cherry picks certain pieces that don't sound too bad at a slower tempo(Even then he plays them faster than his theory says), ignores all historical documentation including instructions on how to use a metronome. Hell you even have recordings of Liszts students playing at the full tempo, and even recordings of the composers them selves like Brahms, Debussy, Saint Sains e.t.c playing even faster than is normal today
@@mactire8557 Eveyone whose recordings you mention are too late for this theory to be relevant to.
The fact that metronome marks did not exist until then is kind of irrelevant, as they still show how people thought of music around that time. If I destroy all metronomes and M. Markings now, and ask you how fast 'allegro' is, you can still give me an idea of it, right? And then when I reintroduce the metronome, you should be able to give me an accurate marking. Same goes for back then - they would have had an idea of what each tempo indication meant, and the m.m. was just a useful tool for codifying it, but it wouldn't have changed how people thought of the tempo.
Not saying I agree with this stuff entirely either (I made a comment above a little bit ago with some counter-evidence), but it's certainly well-researched
It is a really fascinating topic! But I still have dobts about the fully applicability of this theory. Just to mention a pretty detailed case of early nineteen century: the English conductor Sir George Smart (1776-1867) used to record all the duration of the performances of the Beethoven's symphonies and these records do not look so different from the durations we usually have today ( for instance: 9th Symphony, on 17th of April 1837, lasted around 1h and 7 min). Moreover you have to consider that most of tempos of the symphony themes were played to Sir George Smart by Beethoven on 16th of September 1825. Of course we do not know if and how many repetitions used to be performed and that affects our analysis a lot. But even considering the 2 extreme options (1. no repetition or 2. all the repetitions) the double-bit theory seems not applicable or not always applicable.
As a practising musician I came to your conclusion early in my career, based purely on musical and practical considerations and without any of the academic research you so well present. Intuitively it was obvious that some mm I came across were for half the metrical unit (double the performance tempo).
How do you concentrate on elegant phrasing, and knowing how to make the phrases breath and live,. if
you are concentrating on rattling it off as fast as possible.?
This is the first time I have known of anyone who thinks as I do about the accelerated modern tempi imposed on 18th- and early 19th-century music. The error is especially obvious when you listen to modern recordings of the fast movements of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos. The tempi are so ridiculously accelerated that it is difficult even to hear the harmony in the counterpoint! It is just a disorderly cacophony. And common sense tells you that the instruments of those times could not have functioned at the speed of modern instruments.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Juan
nice analysis, Wim -- you've added a really considerable, not so easily displaceable stone to the edifice of your case!
I would LOVE to hear Don Giovanni in the tempi you suggest!
So, how would that aria sound in your interpretation of the metronome marks?
Fink reminds me of most parents in the 1950's in the US when "rock and roll" took pop music by storm. It turned the lovely ballads of the previous 20-30 years into wildly fast simplistic songs repeated ad nauseum with rarely more than one verse between. Dances went from graceful foxtrots and elegant walzes to little more than fast gyrations with little or no "steps" involved. It was a time that forever changed the world of popular music.
I see that as a direct parallel to the 1830's with the dawn of the Industrial Age with its steam engines and ever faster trains replacing the horse drawn carriage for distant travels. Every thing was new and exciting AND faster.
It only makes sense from a sociological point of view that musical performance should reflect the culture of its day.
In my 63 years on this earth I can see the drive for everything to be faster: cars, the Concorde jet, high speed "bullet" trains and most recently the computer. Who in their right mind would have suggested 50 years ago that powerful computing skills would be available in sizes half that of a cigarette pack that also were telephones and high definition video & still cameras - all in one unit?
I find the concept of how the metronome and its predecessor pendulum was used to be a valid understanding of the metronome markings of the pre-1830 era. The minuet was slower than the fox trot and so the swim and the twist were faster than both.
In summation, music is not static. I believe each age has its own "sensibilities" of tempo and interpretation. We need to acknowledge that if we are to define historical accuracy as different from contemporary practices. Let us acknowledge this and enjoy both historic and re-envisioning of all music throughout the ages as it can speak to us in our various cultures and eras.
There's no need for that much space between paragraphs.
Peter: I only typed one “return” after each paragraph. My apologies if it looked intentional. It certainly wasn’t.
Then along came the Ramones who took danceable bubblegum pop and turned it into a barrage of prestississimo power chords. :)
This is true now for the performances of many composers.... the vanity of putting virtuosity in front of expression...... they want to entertain the audience with tinsel and glitter rather than music.
But that's what some music is. Performers take a piece of music and make it their own. Its not vanity, it is performance. A musical artwork can only be art through a performers lens, and a huge amount of Classical music was designed to entertain as well as be a piece of art.
They might want to think about the audience instead of "making it their own"---a romantic conceit. Baroque/classical times had musos as servants. The listeners (!?!) had to "make the music their own". :-) pop, rock, classical and jazz performers recording in the XXth c. had to sell records to live on. They were acutely aware of what sold and what didn't.
Wim, this is the stuff of "Gold Mines"! What the ego hates most is evidence that teaches everything they feared most: That the "common, vulgar plebs" are now on an equal footing to them. They were taught that they were the BEST of the BEST, and it turns out that a lot of us can be quite exceptional because of the truth!!!
I can't say it enough, but thanks to you, Anja (and the supporting roles your littl'uns play) for this marvelous awakening after a half century of being told in so many words that "we're not worthy".
There's LOTS more info out there, and it will be found, and then BAM! Lots of great musicians can take the stage back from the computers.
Cheers!
@@Raherin I'm sorry that you're disheartened. If I offended you, I apologise. Please forgive me. My post was not personally aimed at you, Derek Bunyak.
By the way, Derek, it was G.W. Fink A.D. 1839 who "titled" this work. Mr. Fink was a bit more polemic in his writing then than I was today. Many of us are pleased that music is indeed for the masses, not just a select few who maintain a "status quo" and get to "define" what virtuosity is in the 21st century. Well, my friend, apparently Mr. Fink had another definition in mind of what it meant to be a true virtuoso, and since this gentleman rubbed elbows with Liszt, etc., I think his definitions are a wee bit more important than any modern definitions related to this exegesis.
Herr Beethoven said two centuries hence that "To play a wrong note is insignificant; to play without passion is inexcusable". I don't mind trading in a few klinkers for a few tears; I'll do it every day of the week.
Thank you for your feedback. Again, sorry for the feathers ruffled.
@Derek, I know what you mean and you're absolutely right in the objective world of facts: how much I'd wish to sit down with someone like Andras Schiff and go through the sonatas in double beat, he for sure would do amazing things. See Tom's point in the perspective of daily practice where indeed you'll have standards based on how fast someone can or cannot play.
You are right. I get a lot of pushback from my friends who are professional pianists or graduated from top conservatories. When I say that the Chopin etudes should be played double beat, or much slower than they do, the immediately dismiss it without even hearing the reasons why! They worked so hard their entire lives to play them at the breakneck speed and are proud of the fact that they can play them and few others can. The last thing they want to hear is that they are playing the wrong AND many more people can play them when played correctly.
One more note on the #23 K488 and the interesting conversation that may arise on the bases of interpretation of "Allegro assai" of which the third movement was marked. Here is one historic interpretation shared by Beethoven:
A quote from the " New Edition " by Joseph Nicol Scott (1764):
"Assai (in music books) is always joined with some other word to
weaken the strength or signification of the word to which it
is joined. Thus, for example, when it is joined with the words
vivace, allegro or presto, all of which denote a quick movement; it signifies that the
music must not be performed quite so brisk or quick, as each of these
words, if alone, would require: again, being joined to either of the
words, adagio, grave or largo, which all denote a slow movement, it
intimates that the music must not be performed quite so slow as
each of those words, if alone, would require."
Wouldn't it be easier to then just write " ma non troppo " instead of 'weakening' the other word which in turn would result in a slower tempo? It seems to me a weird construct, from a logical perspective..
@@Mohabpiano Mezzo Piano or Mezzo Forte are seen regularly in music. It is a similar concept.
@@EdmontDantes2 Quite right!: www.jstor.org/stable/730495?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
Doesn't "assai" mean "very" though?...
@@MatthieuStepec Also, but Inspired's source and a different source suggested what Beethoven "meant" ... remember that word do change, and especially in the US, the race to coin the "euphemism" is all the rage. What would 200 years do to a word in order to prove a point?
Always loved Don Giovanni. When I first heard it, I couldn't sleep for having the meeting of the earthly Don and celestial Comandante running through my head. There is something abnormal in these lines that cry for resolution. I have never been so affected than when the Stone Guest mentions his celestial food. It was a very different fare, and it was delicious.
I am very happy to see that new young girl preferring to compose in the classical style, her style. Already a violin, piano concerto and a short Opera and full length Opera performed around the world now, plus other pieces under her belt at the age of 13. And the thing I notice about her work is that she draws out the music, it isn't rushed, bought to a conclusion too soon. I she is true to melodic line. Alma Deutscher, still very young, will no doubt grow and mature, and produce some interesting music in the future, but a good start by her.
Very interesting, thank you for uploading.
Wim, you describe your ideas in a way even an idiot can understand. But not biased people who have already made up their minds.
thanks Wim. It is interesting the number of pianist that suffers from performing injuries namely: tendonitis, carpal tunnel syndrome and dystonia --the worst of the lot. Could this be because pianist are damaging their hands an nervous systems thorough the overuse and overwork required to achieve these warp-speed tempos.
yes, they strive for something that is beyond physically possible and therefore cause damage to their system, you'll always have a happy few, but the majority will talk about this
AuthenticSound can you back that up with sum citations. It seems improbable that the musical armagedon that this commentsextion seems to think isncurrently underway could proceed if it was physically impossible to play at those speeds.
Thank you for Ur videos on Classical music I love your videos and I am viewing it from India.
Kerial Siller Here from Belgium :)
@@yuhengwu6853 nice dude
This music channel comes like heaven to me
Is mozart aeternam of the requirem and lacrimosa also in different tempo?
If so, I'd like to hear aeternam and lacrimose in their orijinal form. I always want to slow down by half the first of the Aeternam, but I'm not sure about second and third part, especially third part sounds better fast.
Love the Fink voice lol
It was great!
Who would have guessed G.W. Fink is your archetypal UA-cam commenter.
one of my most favorite videos ever - such a MAJOR revelation !! - since childhood, I've always had a problem with fully embracing Mozart's music - so much sounded too hurried and frantic to me ! - such a joy to now know why !
One hypothesis: 1. what if non-musical concertgoers CAN'T TELL (or don't care, or are insensitive) about the tempo of the music? As long as they recognize the tune, have something they can hum on the way home. I fear that reflex of « épater les bourgeois » may even be present among some performers. 2. Boredom/impatience. When one becomes adept at execution, a faster performance is easier to demonstrate/measure than a better performance. The proverbial "they wouldn't recognize a better performance, even if it slapped them across the face". :-) Tempo is essential to dancers and singers, if it's too fast enjoyment and intelligibility suffer. But when there are no lyrics, and no dancing, 3. some may be of the opinion "best to get it over with _as quickly as possible_. Especially parents or teachers and some performers too, who have grown impatient with hearing the piece over and over again. 4. Another argument can be made from economics: it isn't that slower/faster tempi are better, it is that they are fashionable (see Grampp, _Pricing the Priceless: Art, Artists and Economics_ (1979 ?, Basic Books). Avec un beau bonjour d'Ottawa, au Canada.
Someone mentioned the Hammerklavier sonata by Beethoven as an example of double-beat failure, but, as I was watching and listening masterclasses and so on, there was one matter that always came to conversation, the metronome marking of the first movement, Andras Schiff says in his lectures that this is for showing the spirit needed for that movement, Mr. Winters has said constantly that the metronome markings are in fact exact (I'd love have the bibliography for that, and I apologize if you already have mentioned it). Claudio Arrau about this said that played that fast would destroy the spirit and power of the piece. Well, I think hearing that movement in double-beat would be very interesting, considering that this way of counting make the metronome numbers logical. Now, I share the opinion that for some pieces this causes a strange effect that sounds unnatural (at least for our "modern" ears), I mean terribly long silences and gigantic fermatas. Certainly is hard to believe that people of 1770's played faster to we do today, but is also strange to think that everybody played that slow (again to our modern ears), I mean, instruments were and are capable of resisting high speeds (even to our "modern" standars), we have to have in mind that Mozart improvised a huge amount of embellishments (there are proofs of that), so using a slower (to us) tempo would be more useful in order to use different articulation and dynamic contrasts, but another thing that I think we have to have in mind is that speed is also a way of expressing, there are beautiful fast things and ugly fast thing, same thing for slow things. I don't know if every fast movement by Beethoven work in a very slow tempo, because (and as a difference with Mozart) sometimes his music and his way of writing keyboard music is more an effect than a melodic line (also with Liszt, Chopin, Schumann and so on).
Your videos are ridiculously interesting! Keep up the great work Wim!
Wow! You have a very valid point!
Thanks Neels
Thanks!
Thank you!
Just listen to Gould's Mozart. It's amazing the display of virtuosity he can reach (for example) in the K.310 manteinig the clarity still. But that is clearly a "musical provocation" so tipical of him, showing his very personal way wich works btw and is fine but if what we want to obtain is a sound as close as possible to the composer intentions than this work of research of yours is extremely interesting and necessary. So thank you again for you videos!
Thank you Marcello, for sharing your thoughts on the subject. I'm a big Glenn Gould fan by the way!
It seems to me that Tomášek's metronome numbers, even just on their own and on musical grounds, leave only a scintilla of doubt that one must interpret them as double-beat. Bolstering the argument with Fink's approval of those numbers surely eliminates the scintilla. So I think we can say QED about your conclusion. Well done, Wim!
On another point: It may be that Fink was correct that a sort of "show off" virtuosity contributed to Mozart tempi in his day that he thought were too fast. Today, however, HIP tempi that are sometimes so fast that the music gets strangled are probably chosen not for the sake of virtuosity display, but rather because the conductor wants to demonstrate that s/he is informed by the best scholarship. Or, in some cases, it may be that the conductor thinks the music is more exciting or dramatic played that way. The former indicates a conductor who is actually min-informed; the latter someone who is simply a poor conductor.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts here, you might enjoy this: ua-cam.com/video/-irGdmiLmWk/v-deo.html
didn't some book from back then have instruction on how they used a metronome ?
Wim, a great video with a very solid set of arguments (ok, Fink voice, a bit OTT ;) ) . I think I mentioned it before that even without looking for the real tempo of the Mozart music today we are witnessing performances of virtuosity that lose big time on sentiment. I dont know if this is any sort of loss of influence from the 'romantic era', but it certainly says something about our era that prefers speed to sentiment. By the way what is your opinion about Arturo Michellangeli? In my uuntrained ears it sounds as if he hadnt fallen into this 'trap'.
All the big performers fell into this trap because they needed to make a living and impress the audience rather than present the music as music. They would literally race around giving concerts and the more people they could rake in on the concert circuit, the more money they would bring in for the managers and for themselves.
But sadly this hasn't changed... I saw this firsthand with a modern orchestra and a famous one at that. They performed the complete Bach Brandenburg Concertos. They took tempos that were so fast that they made mistakes. The G-major concerto No. 3, for example, left me feeling as though I was going to pass out from nerves. The finale was so fast that they were skipping beats when they took the repeats. My neighbor who brought me to the concert turned to me before I said anything and said "They played that way too fast!" Another person said to me she felt exhilarated, but she admitted she knew nothing about the music, which means exactly why they played so fast - to impress the audience and take in the dough.
On this point I agree w/ you. There's a huge difference when your main objective is impressing a paying audience for your own reputation vs. showing the music the respect the composer intended.
Valentina Lisitsa!!! The joy on her face says it all.
Valentina Lisitsa!!! The joy on her face says it all.
Valentina Lisitsa!!! The joy on her face says it all.
That tempo for don Giovanni is pretty S A C R I L E G I O U S
It'd be a mess if the orchestra have to play 15 notes a second
Brilliant as usual
Again, Wim! We are certain of our facts not so much by those who believe us, but by those who don't. Think about it. You're spot on; you've been spot on, and you'll continue to be spot on! Keep doing what you're doing! You are making a difference - a HUGE difference! Godspeed!
It would be healty for everyone if the double beat research could answer every argument against it. It would leave (finally) the classicals in peace. Why try to play Mozart, Chopin and friends at lightspeed when contemporary repertoire is technically far more demanding than the classical? If you want a technical challenge...well, play a Rautavaara Concerto instead of playing Mozart concerti alla breve. Sad to see historical fortepianist like Van Oort and Brautigam (who I admire) repeating the same pattern...as if fortepianos where just lighter pianos for playing even more faster. Hopefully the HIP will someday stop supporting the lack of research on these topics and using historical instruments only for commercial purpouse.
I mean, Wim's doing a lot of research, but you can't just discount the research of _all_ HIP performers and musicologists. It's just insulting and ignorant to do that, because these people work incredibly hard. And if Wim's right, then good on him; other people were preoccupied elsewhere.
@@klop4228 I didn't meant to insult the HIP, just trying to complain about how toxic and harmful the music enviroment has become in the pursue of the fastest execution on any given piece. Many pianist use the lighter fortepiano mechanic to play even faster than modern pianos and that is very harmful to classical music. I do admit I forgot to say that those musicians, in most cases, have nothing to do with the HIP and research...they just try to get on the fastest horse.
Great. But in the end what was the double beat (2 metronom beats = 1 reference measure beat) tempo (claimed and approved) giving ? I wished we heard the aria; because, ultimately, what matters is the feeling of the music, isn't it ?
Try this experiment---go listen to a Mozart symphony, or a Mendelssohn piece(2 composers that are often played far too fast) that's labelled "Presto" and drop the tempo 5%,10%, or even 15%---You'll see how much better the music sounds. Do the reverse with the slow movements. SO much better. The problem with playing things too fast is lose the power, and you have nowhere to go. If you hold back a little, then you can speed up in the CODA etc /use speed as a dynamic construct for when you need it. Contrariwise, if you drag a tempo down too much, you dont get "More passion"---you drag the melody into the ground and make it sound like a funeral/destroy the flow of the melody in the piece.
I’ve sang Leporello many times and in many different productions and I have to say I’ve sung many times the speed of the second example.
(And that piece, by the way, is not an “aria”, as you hear the other singers as well, it’s a sextet)
I’m not a musician at all but for me Ricardo Mutti’s Don Giovanni feels just right...! I’ve heard other and somehow the timing on this one feels natural!
The romanian Sergiu Celibidache prefered slower tempi than the general practice for most of what he counducted.
And the results are amaizing, you can hear the Harmony's breath, and the armonics in the whole Orchestra sound increases considerably.
But Celibidache's choice of tempi was related to his phenomenology of music as a process.
I find that most classical orchestras and pianists play fast movements far too fast, and perform the slow movements far too slowly--- like a funeral. Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata(The 2nd movement) is a prime example. Here's the rule I go by:
" If you're playing a slow movement, imagine a singer singing the melody---Singers have to breath, so if a singer cant sing the melody of the tempo you're playing, you're going too slowly.
I love your work! You seriously are contributing so much to the preservation of music history. You have given me a lot to think about with my playing.
Great to read, that's the reason to put effort into these videos!
I completely agree, it is clear without doubt that today's interpretations are stressful and exiting. They, unfortunately, well represent our era's spirit who gave birth to industrial society based on speed and performance and competition. Speed is mesurable and this well fits to our countability mentality. I was not this way in the past, not even clocks would would match from one village to the other and nobody cared. Speed and punctuality just did not matter that much in daily life, so why should they matter in music?
Thanks for sharing your thoughts here Tiziano
What? They had clocks in mozart's time.
Of course! Much earlier actually. Tower clocks were already there in 1300. In Italy they belonged to the different corporations of workers that would "gong" in specific moments of the day connected to a specific working necessity. That was the beginning of a society based on human time and not divine only time; bells would ring not only for prayers moments but for work as well. Despite that though, the absolute precision we live today that causes the problems Wim from @AuthenticSound underlines was not there. That is one of the reasons for which I agree with him. It's intuitive...
1300 is considered the century that actually created many of the things we call modern in our society such as banks, universities, business enterprises and much more...
I see some play K246 way too fast, especially on the modern piano which has a much more sustained sound, Mozart complained about it on the contemporary pianos in his own day.
The best way to find the true tempi would be to have a seance where everybody holds hands around a table and Mozart's spirit appears and knocks the table so that you can hear the original tempi of whatever piece they ask him.
:). In fact it is much simpler, we have dozens and dozens of MM of musicians who were very close to him, and contrary to what most today 'believe', they were considered to be exact tempo indications. Moreover, the reconstruction of tempi from Bach to Beethoven (and beyond) starting from the notation and tempo ordinario surprisingly (or not...) does not point to many mysteries.
@@AuthenticSound I heard there is also the mystery of pitch, whether pieces were played at a lower pitch that they are today -- A 440 was not their standard pitch. Pitch and tempi are important for the feel of the piece of music, and maybe that feel is lost today as well.
Around 1839-1840s time frame, Czerny published his Op. 500, "Complete Theoretical and Practical School". In there he gives his well known metronome markings. Thinking back on this, I wonder if he too was trying to set the table straight in a bit more subtle way than Fink coming out with his article, or perhaps Czerny did this as backup for Fink in the hopes that future generations of pianists would follow the lead and use his published tempo markings.
they had the same purpose, safeguarding a tradition
well done. Very persuasive. BTW, what Don G recording comes the closest to what you figure Mozart would have conducted it at? That was a reference that I thought was obvious and which I would like to hear your suggestions for. Perhaps Karl Bohm's Mozart? I don't know....
I don`t know anything about musicology studies on classical music tempi, but as an engineer, I would assume that there might be a variation on the construction of the metronomes and that such variation could lead to disparities in the tempo marking. Meaning that 80BPM in one metronome could be 90BMP in another. Without a proper experiment to calibrate the metronome and measure how accurate its tempo is there is no way to know if their metronomes beat corresponds to the same ones we have in modern metronomes, which I believe that are much more accurate. We can`t achieve 100% accuracy in anything, but thought calibration we can determine the measurement error range, up to a probabilistic certainty level of your choosing. Higher certainty would mean a wider range for error. They did have mechanical watches/clocks at the time and it could be used as a reference for calibrating the metronome, but then you would have to calibrate the clock itself with a proper time reference, which I have no idea what it could be.
My point is, we don't know for sure if 100BPM in Fink's metronome is the same as 100BPM in Tomaschek metronome and the same as 100BPM in our modern metronomes. Also, we can't know for a fact how much discrepancy there is between these instruments. One might argue that this difference wouldn't be significant. I don't know, I am not an expert in anything, but it seems to me that we can't really know for sure, and that should be accounted for. Anyway, I don't think that could explain why Fink approved Tomascheck crazy fast tempo markings, but it might be a part of the explanation.
By the way, great story. Thank you for sharing, I didn't know any of that. Just wanted to give my perspective on this "mystery", I didn't want to sound petulant.
Early 19th c. that come in for restoration these days are all the same, with maximum amount of being 'off' about 5%. So they are all still surprisingly accurate. Also MM for variety of works and over decades are pretty consistent as well.
Hum, 5% is not such a big difference indeed. But anyway, I think that should be part of the "equation".
We're not talking about abstract unites. We're talking about BPM. People had clocks and watches, checked the time with each other, made music with each other. Small variation is possible, but it's easy to imagine that any bigger one would be noticed
Looks like I'm the only one(unless he cleans comments), who can't get why this guy added fragment from Don Giovanni at the beginning with doubling normal tempo, such obvious fool. And the demagogy of first ten seconds, I was kinda new, but I can already say the there are something sactiligious
Wim, do you know if there are metronome marks for other Mozart operas?
yes, look at the Schlesinger editions. Don't know if they are all on IMSLP, Lorenz Gadient has them all (you can see them on the video I did with him going through his books)
@@AuthenticSound I can't see this edition on IMSL. Which was the video you were referring to? Really I want to get a metronome mark for "La Vendetta" (Figaro) and for the Sarastro arias.
I think nowadays "the Vanity of musicologists are destroying Mozart's Music." Congratulations on your amazing research, this is priceless!
Nothing more tragic than Mozart's requiem opening at a gallop.
As an opinion piece this is a very interesting video. But at the end of the day it is all a matter of taste. This video reflects the authors taste, not the actual evidence. There is evidence for all kinds of speeds. But also, speed of music is partly determined by the venue, acoustic, type of performance, the players, number of players (big vs large orchestra). From a practical point of view, sometimes music that has a fast tempo can still sound relaxed, other times if a faster tempo is too hard for a performer then it will sound too fast even if that actual tempo isnt particularly fast. There is a such a psychological impact to how we perceive whether a tempo is good or bad that its very difficult to push onto other a "correct" speed. Music requires performers to turn the dots into music. And different performers will apply different interpretations, there is a line where the composer ends and the performer takes over where the composer "gifts" their work over to the performers to turn it into music. Without that you may as well just give it to a machine to perform.
Commentary with metronome markings from a half century after Mozart's death is interesting, but why disregard the evidence from the composer himself? Mozart indicated a general tempo by providing the meter and the general speed (andante, allegro, largo, etc.). Music treatises from the period, included that of Mozart's own father, Leopold, provide good perspective. Leopold gives his reader ways to tell the tempo of a piece. In the period before metronomes existed, these were the how performers understood the tempo that the composer wanted. So any discussion of tempo should start with Mozart's own indications in his autograph scores. For example, the beginning of the overture to Don Giovanni should not be played slowly (or very fast). It is marked andante with the alla breve meter. It must be felt in two, with a moderate tempo in which one normally walks (andante). People certainly have different taste and preferences. But when performing the music of this great genius, why not defer to his taste and preference?
What assurance is there that the metronomes of that time were anywhere close to being accurate? I have owned quite a few mechanical and even some electronic metronomes by Wittner and others that differed greatly from my quartz wristwatch. Only since I got a Seiko quartz metronome can I trust the tempi.
the ones that are coming in for restoration are 5% off at maximum. There is not a real way for them to really be 'off'. Also, the reference of 60= 1 second was set to test it, and finally, the 1000s of MM we have from that period are remarkable in line with each other.
Well, I just wondered, because I've had some that were pretty bad. Two spring to mind: A Wittner electronic that lost tempo as the battery drained (it was much more than 5% off at times!) And a mechanical Wittner 'Junior' with a bad “limp”: The beats were of unequal length. But although I do consider 5% off to be just about unusable, I understand that it wouldn't have much bearing on the main issue here.
@@skakdosmer I have a Wittner Taktell Junior here that keeps up with the beat just fine.
It's over 20 years old.
@@QoraxAudio I have exactly that one, except mine is over 40 years old, and it always had a “limp”. If I put it on a slanted surface (like the upturned lid), I can make it “walk straight”, but it isn’t very accurate. Have you tried setting yours to 60 and counted with it to 60, comparing it to a normal watch? You shouldn’t be too surprised if it’s off..
@@skakdosmer Yes I have compared it with my watch collection.
*IF* it's slightly off, it's not noticeable within a minute or two.
Have you accidentally dropped it some time?
The mechanics inside seem to be quite fragile; all steel axles that have zero suspension.
Or maybe dust/debris has entered through the grill behind the weight?
Or maybe it just needs some oil?
Unfortunately, many classical compositions seem to be treated like Hanon exercises these days, where speed rather than content becomes the goal. With any piece of music, there is a point where the tempo interferes with the ability to express the mood of the composition properly. Where that point is, is very subjective and maybe that is why many composers were vague about tempo indications - leaving it up to the performer to decide at what speed they can best bring out the beauty and meaning of the piece.
Wim, super video. Regarding your previous video on the Beethoven Prestissimo, can you put PianoPat right on what he says about your ignoring counter-evidence? He summarises this in his post. I don't have the depth of knowledge to deal with it properly.
Thank you Peter. Pianopat and I called each other, he's a nice guy and I understand it takes time to open this window completely. I suggested as a reaction to read the entire article by Fink. It is so common for people who try to come up with counter arguments, to narrow the topic down to one small point, make an assumption and then start from that assumption as a new fact. We'll have to live with the idea that will happen now and for years to come. Let's focus on inspire people, musicians, listeners, just offer them a guide line for a possible truth, a path to beauty in my mind and respect the differences. In this case, the context is so strong, that it should be able to defend itself! Hope this clarifies a bit my position these days, thank you for being here with me on this topic!
Böhm's tempi aren't all that slow to me anymore, sounds like he was closer to the mark.
Gran video! 🎉
In the 1970s, when progressive rock music had reached its decadence, the ability to play the electric guitar fast was regarded as the sign of a virtuoso.
Tavistock social engineering.
Thank you for yours answer and your link to this video. Now I see your point and understand your argument which I had misunderstood before, because I had not seen that it is about the full beat vs. half beat-topic. This is really convincing.
Wim I agree with you.
No composer would indicate tempo that would make a musician sing as if they were speaking at 120 syllables per second. It just does not make sense. They indicated the tempo as they wished the compositions to be played. They were humans, not gods. They took their own compositions to heart. Tempo indicated everything about how they envisioned their music, their insights, and their emotions should be played. I Find it rather arrogant to think that composers didn't care enough about their works that they would leave it to others to do as they pleased.
Thanks Oscar!
What about to play Mozart in a midi keyboard ?
MIDI is a communications protocol to trigger other instruments from a master instrument. Nothing to do with tempo. A non sequitur.
Why is "30%" how much faster it must have been performed in 1839? 30% is the difference between 100bpm and 130bpm - that's a huge difference in tempo. If it was only 8-10% faster than Tomaschek's tempo, that might be quite plausible as a too-quick performance tempo. The figure of 30% is too great to rest the argument, on in my opinion.
10% is not a big enough of a gap to be called 'way too fast' or to be as outraged as Fink was in his article. Read it, it is really really strong. And you know, already the Tomascheck tempi, without addition are called 'foolish' by even the die-hard single beat defenders. But these tempi were not foolish to Fink, that's the core essence of the story.
@AuthenticSound I think an inference from Fink's level of outrage in his article to a particular level of increased tempo is a bit tenuous, if you'll forgive me for saying so. In any case, when a piece is already at a fairly quick tempo, you do not need much of a % increase in speed to suddenly make it noticeably faster.
As for the point about standard performance speeds, I here copy across a comment from the previous time this Tomaschek issue was dicussed on Authentic Sound (March 2017), from another commentor, Rowan Williams: "I really feel that this representation of Tomaschek's tempi is not a balanced one. The very fast example here (around 6.12), the sextet "Mille Torbidi Pensieri" from Act 2, is set by Tomaschek at minim (half note) = 112. This is a really steady tempo by most performance standards. Even Karajan (not known for speed) takes it at 120 in his 1987 production with Samuel Ramey. The huge majority of Tomaschek's metronome marks are very similar to standard modern performance practice, some a little faster, some a little slower. It is the slow arias which are often marked faster by T, not the allegro ones. This tendency fits other evidence from the 18th - 19th centuries. The only real surprise is "Deh Vieni" which he sets much, much faster than we are used to. To add 30% to the tempi is a huge over- compensation I would suggest. Even 10% would be quite a lot! And we cannot know that Fink considered every part of the opera to be too fast."
Rowan Williams After some reflection, and following the intervention of other musicians in the channel comments, i have come to the view that the available evidence is not strong enough to support a theory as revolutionary as double beat. As someone once said “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”, and i feel that while there are some interesting arguments there is no evidence or argument strong enough to justify double beat as a theory that applies to any well-known composers. I think the unconscious motivation in formulating the theory is as follows. Suppose you start in music as an organist (a more sight-reading-oriented discipline than piano) and become a good sight reader. It would be natural to expect then to be able to more or less sight-read most works if one transfers to the piano. However, music after Mozart got more complex and ambitious, and the only way one can sight-read or learn it very quickly is by slowing it down a lot. Therefore a theory is developed that allows you to do so.
Fink's words are "wild, barbaric, whipped into distortion, raging, ...". However much it was, this does indicate a really strong deviation in tempo felt by Fink, I believe.
@@torstenhefer3118 I just don't think this sort of reasoning is a very secure base on which to rest an argument about double beat metronome interpretation. (For a start, people who write academic articles are apt to inflate small differences to seem bigger than they are.) With no offence to those who advocate "double beat" based on these sorts of arguments, it al seems a bit tenuous - like clutching at straws. I am sure that some people were in 1839 performing Mozart in ways that were either too fast or too wild - this cannot be an argument for performing Mozart at half of the single beat tempo (of Tomaschek).
I for one am convinced by this. The speeds that the musicologists advocate are mostly ridiculous. This music was
composed to be played by performers whose techniques had been honed on the WTC and Mozart and Haydn. The
pieces and etudes by Liszt and others that enabled pianoforte technique to play at this speed were yet to be composed.
The idea that pianists had a technique for playing which has now been lost is hilarious. Perhaps that had been
coached by aliens from the planet Zob. The ability was lost when they took the Space Tram home.
I don't think that the Musicologists know what they are talking about. They just don't like being
contradicted by the lower orders. Rules is Rules. They are either unable to see past their theories
or they just have cloth ears.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts here, John
This guy is an idiot. These were no metronome markings up until 19th century so his theory doesnt even make sense for that. Even then the countless works by brahms, Beethoven, Chopin are meant to be played in the metronome markings. Mozart never even gave tempo markings no musicolgists believe Don givioni is meant to be played as in the intro. This theory is so damn stupid and the guy just cherry picks certain pieces that don't sound too bad at a slower tempo(Even then he plays them faster than his theory says), ignores all historical documentation including instructions on how to use a metronome. Hell you even have recordings of Liszts students playing at the full tempo, and even recordings of the composers them selves like Brahms, Debussy, Saint Sains e.t.c playing even faster than is normal today
@ mac tire
No this will not do. Putting to one side the intemperate language which hardly
helps a sensible debate if you have a strong view give facts and evidence not
vague vapourings and waffle.
"But everyone knows that" is not valid evidence.
The world of 1814 when the metronome was invented was so different from ours that
it is hard to put ourselves in their mindset. Everything was smaller, slower, softer. Everything
was on a more human scale. Most people had never traveled more than 50 miles from their
birth place. A galloping horse would be the fastest speed they knew, a thunderclap the loudest
sound. Yet we are asked to believe that they suddenly started adopting speeds that were only
possible to players who had been through the revolution in piano technique started by Liszt and
Chopin. I know it is hard for a Pianist to think like a musician but can you not hear that these speeds
mangle the music.
We need to put music back on a human scale. More intimate slower softer gentler. If you have a moment
listen to the performance of the six Schumann canonic etudes played on a small Cavaille Coll organ by Fabre Guin
in a Paris Chapel..
This is as near perfection as you can get.
@@johnsilverton639 lol no all these pieces are perfectly playable at the tempo markings and from the earliest recordings we have some dating from the 19th century performers of the time played just as fast if not even faster, all you need his good technique. On top of that we have the recorded time of Mozart's and Beethoven's works and they last as we would expect them to (by winters theory a mozart opera would be 6-8 hours long) directly disproving his theory. And no you can leave this nonsense of 19th century people being too slow these literally no evidence of double beat theory, all winters has is one random music critic's reconciliation of what the tempo don givioni was 40 years after hearing it, then taking this tempo(which isn't much different to modern tempo) and applying it to the most fastest part of a 4 hour opera to make it sound bad(we have no idea where this critic recalled it being at that tempo since the opera changes tempo through out but presumably at the beginning which sounds fine at that tempo) EVEN THEN mozart never even gave a tempo marking, modern performers are basing their Interpretation on the tradition that has been passed down and understanding of musicology not any tempo markings so his theory doesn't even apply here. We have literal quotes of Wagner saying how long his pieces last which allign perfectly with modern performances, we have recordings of some composers themselves and their students playing at full tempo and not a single mention of peope using the metronome as duoblebeats(How are you suppose to use the metronome on uneven time signatures or wouldnt t work). If you prefer to listen/play music at slower tempo fine go ahead but don't claim that's the intedened tempo of the composers NO it's not and stop with this BS 'real historical tempi" from one guy on UA-cam with a half baked theory
mac tíre It comes down to this. Either your Musicianship and Inner Ear tell you that he is right or you do
not possess these two essential items. Without them you are free to concentrate on approaching warp
speed in everything you play.
45 seconds in, and I'm "Please shoot me now."
Wouldn't be a waste.
Fanatastic study!! Thank you so much, Wim.
Thanks for watching!
@@AuthenticSound I watch one of your vids maybe every day!! Tempo of the masters is such an important component to our understanding of their intentions and original expression of muse. Please keep posting these wonderful and important studies. Cheers:)
Very intersting! But wasn't Mozart (and Rossini) operas partly based on singer's virtuosity, and their ability to sing a fast and clear line?? Could the tempo of some parts be "as fast as possible" like in later Chopin's works???
Thank you. You know, words like 'fast' are relative to a context. Trains ca 1830 were described as we today would describe a space shuttle, yet today we can reach those speeds of 27 km/h with an electric bike. The bell canto style and ornamentation indeed was to showcase a kind of virtuosity, but that didn't affect (at least until 1830-1840) the overall natural and more 18th century type tempi
The charlatans are still with us. Mozart's well known piano concerto (K.488) - I heard on radio a few weeks back. I imagine it is the latest release of a certain virtuoso (who shall remain nameless!). The fast tempo is totally inappropriate. It gives the impression the only reason for the performer playing the work is to get to the end as soon as possible! True the first movement is marked allegro - but it is played nearer presto - And the third movement is marked allegro assai (sufficiently fast)i. Despite this, that final movement is hurried through as if it were marked prestissimo. The results are an appalling act of musical vandalism
I think it's important to remind ourselves that there is such a thing as artistic freedom. If somebody want's to play super fast he should feel free to do so, and if he want's to play super slow that's his right too. And if you don't like it, that's okay as long as you don't patronize him. Personally I tend to think that most slow pieces are played or sung much too fast, whereas much fast music isn't performed fast enough. But sometimes there's a musician who does everything moderato, which I'm normally against, but in a way that's very pleasant. And I rejoyce in the fact that we don't have to search for any “truth” or any “correct” tempo, and that very different interpretations can be equally good.
At the very end of the 1985 movie “Runaway Train” (starring Jon Voight and Eric Roberts) there's a Russian choir singing some grand and slow music - which it took me several minutes to recognize as a piece that I knew very well: “et in terra pax hominibus” from Vivaldi's Gloria in D, RV589, but sung at maybe a third of the tempo that the composer probably intended. But it sounded great!
@AuthenticSound Check the "The UCSB cylinder audio archive" Of the university of Santa Barbara and search "Galvany mozart" in the search box. Ok, it's not don Giovanni, but a hint of the "ancient" style is there. Just wait for the coloratura there ;-) Greetings, Rolf, netherlands.
Common sense is often the less common. Rushing Mozart can only lead to disaster, and to an unfair distortion of his music. An example I know well is the Requiem. The three first movements are often played insanely fast, especially the Introitus. Not because that speed is impossible to sing, but because the Introitus is a funeral march. It is suppossed to be slow-paced, full of grief, solemnity, and respect. Next, singing the Kyrie eleison at insane speeds is a crime. The semi quavers and staccato of this magnificent double fugue get aboslutely lost, along with the emotional message of the agonizing increasing plea which Mozart abruptly ends with the terrifying vii7/V chord to show the shock of facing the inevitable: death. None of this is possible when rushing. The same happens with the Dies Irae, and the imbecilic argument is that it conveys the end of the world, therefore -they assume, it has to happen insanely fast. No one says Mozart's music should be then played excessively slow, it is a matter of common sense. Compare this ua-cam.com/video/TFPZtl0DqNs/v-deo.html to this ua-cam.com/video/e5cv00YFENE/v-deo.html
So going back to the point: Common sense should indicate the most appropriate tempo in Mozart's works, considering all the factors in which his works are embedded.
So Fink believed Mozart's work would be perfect if not for too many notes... per minute?
He wanted Mozart to be performed in the original style and tempi, which was way slower than people around 1840 (in the time of mechanization) did
Yes, I was just making a reference to the movie 'Amadeus'. I'm not sure if you've seen it.
The Emperor's comment to Mozart after a performance.
I'm not really sure why you think singing at that speed is impossible. The recording sped up to that degree is annoying to the ear, but only because it is a recording sped up and the vibratos were increased in speed as well. 9 syllables a second is perfectly possible as are 12 syllables a second, especially in Italian.
Good sung or stage Italian is not so fast. In good Italian there are many stops and elongated consonants. eg "contento" - "kont:tent:to", or if at the beginning of a phrase in singing "k:kont:tent:to"; "terra" - "terrrra". Many modern Italian singers are not as articulate as they should be.
@@petertyrrell3391 While that might be true, the claim I'm responding to is whether singing at such a speed is impossible. Not whether we prefer to hear Italian sung at such a speed.
@@PhilosophicalDance Ok, but I would be surprised if you can get more than 6 vowels or 6 vowel consonant combinations in one second. I think French is faster, and possibly English as well.
Well, 9 syllables per second is actually not possible. Perhaps you can do it for 1 second, but not for entire pages. Let alone faster. Just try to count to 9 in one second. Even if you could, what idiot of a composer would want to destroy the libretto in that way...
Isn't it ironic?
I'm watching this video at 1.5 speed.
Still not too fast.
😊 that's the great thing about living in our time: free choices!
I hate to do this, as I really do like your theory, but I have some more evidence against this...
I was listening to Gardiner's recording of the Eroica (45 mins 'Period Performance') and a comment mentioned that people back in the day said it took an hour to perform. Naturally, I was sceptical, given your theory, and decided to do some digging.
Ended up here: www.beethovenseroica.com/Pg2_hist/history.html
This source quotes (a little past halfway, in the 'First Performance' section) the _Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung,_ which gives a review of the piece. Among other things (all interesting, but not to this point), saying that it's really long, lasting a full hour.
Again, I thought it would be best to check the original source. Fortunately, the page cites it as the issue of the _Zeitung_ from the 1st May 1805, so I did some digging and found the thing on archive.org (here: archive.org/details/bub_gb_Bd4qAAAAYAAJ), did some digging and found May 1st. The relevant passage is on page 290 in the file (just scroll along the bottom, or add /page/n289 to the end of the url) about halfway down the leftmost column, where it says (this being part of what the link above quotes and translates):
[...] aber die Sinfonie würde unendlich gewinnen, _(sie dauert eine ganze Stunde)_ wenn sich B. entschliessen wollte sie abzukürzen, und in das Ganze mehr Licht, Klarheit und Einheit zu bringen; [...]
(emphasis, mine)
Basically, the brackets say that the Eroica lasts an hour.
What is interesting to note is that the same entry does say that Beethoven himself conducted the hour-long performance and that Gardiner's recording (which uses his later metronome markings) is, with the repeat, only 45 minutes long. Even if we say that B.'s recording included the repeat, he's still doing it on average about 75% the tempo. So that's something, I suppose. But there's no way they played it at half the tempo Gardiner performs it at, because where did that half hour go?
Anyway, that's my main point. It's maybe just one piece of evidence, but it's evidence supporting the status quo, and also, as far as I can tell, crystal clear. I won't say this completely topples your points, but it's pushed me back a little from believing your theory.
Durations are always difficult facts, you'll find that support a single beat interpretation (with similar difficulties as eg Milchmeyer in his pf school for beginners...), durations that have too little references to exact programs, and double beat support (Liszt's Hammerklavier being the most prominent). The Eroica is in the middle I'd say. Anyway: it are the MM that are on top of it all, they must guide any research (and they don't for the single beat side, because most of them are constantly ignored or labeled as misprints)
@@AuthenticSound I suppose that makes a sort of sense, although Beethoven's duration is almost the same as most modern non-HIP recordings (and some are a couple minutes short, which would be made up if they did the repeat). Either way, it clearly shows that Beethoven did not strictly follow his ideas about the tempi, which relates to the 'should you play music exactly as written?' debate.
@@AuthenticSound Do you mind referring me to which video(s) you talk about duration, or at least discussing specific examples further here? I've gotten rather interested.
ua-cam.com/video/KGVVQPEvT64/v-deo.html&index=19
Urmff, Total length? An average duration? An unreliable measurement. For ex, if the slow movement is taken faster, and the faster movement slower... Too many moving parts. There's also the joke about the person that drowned crossing a river whose average depth was 1 meter. Speculation is atricky tool. Do some stats, do some philosophy, do the math, not the opinions
Between too fast tempo and too slow tempo there is a lot of possibilities....
So basically, we are listening to the nightcore version of all those pieces ?
yes
I consider Arrau's performance of Mozart's F major sonata to be somewhat close to Mozart's intentions. What really caught me off guard is the circle of fifths passage in the first movement, for the first time it didn't sound like secondary dominants casually following each other, but dramatic swings (felt in the subito forte piano) between what i perceived as shifting tonal centers when played at this slower, more considerate tempo. I will also mention Arrau's reputation for artistic and intellectual integrity, so I believe that anyone searching for the true sound of a piece need not converse with anything other than the score. It shouldn't require so much evidence to play musically and truly to the style of the period/composer. Even Mendelssohn once said something along the lines of never needing tempo markings if you're a serious musician. Many of the great musicians played some or many pieces at much thoughtful tempi than today's virtuoso-saturated market, including Bernstein (Brahms especially, Bach too), Arrau as mentioned with mozart example below (also Liszt concerto 1!!!), Radu Lupu (brahms sonata 3), Celibidache (most of everything he conducted, but most notably beethoven 9, also conducted by an elderly Klemperer at a grand tempo). The list can go on forever, no true artist can resist the need for slower tempi for the old pieces, for then the music really speaks.
I leave this gem here:
ua-cam.com/video/uBs_xq5viJE/v-deo.html
I was convinced back in 2017 after the discussions with Lorenz Gadient. I don't know how any serious musicologists at this point can deny that the double-beat argument/approach is the correct one. This example here lends even more very logical evidence to bolster this view.
Thanks Steven, probably for a musicologist on an academic level to be the first to officially embrace this (and thus cause a revolution) it might be still a bit too early, but who knows? Times do change (and sometimes for the better!)
The thing is, that theory is nonsense. We know how long pieces written in the 18th century were, and the lengths correspond with the tempi, and composers like Brahms that were born during the early 19th century would have been alive to hear the pieces played at the correct tempo (yet the recordings we have of him playing during the late 19th century correspond with correct tempo markings).
Then we have the false notion that the advent of trains meant we started to think faster, yet horses were still the fastest means of transportation up until around 1900.
Finally, we have the problem that a lot of music when played as slow as this suggests it's supposed to be played is almost impossible to play (since the theory completely ignores wind or string instruments and the concept of singing).
i guess ill just play schuman's schezo from 2nd symphony @ half tempo during an audition and point anyone who questions me to this video (jus kiddin) :P
All musicians that I know that have tried seriously double beat in concerts have the same experience: the audience is a 100% attentive and emotionally hit in a way they've not experienced before
While I completely agree with you that contemporary musicianship can easily be succumbed to sole and extreme obsession for accuracy resulting in a artificial restriction to ease and pressure upon the flow of expressions, virtuosity also necessitates musicality because musicality, even though some men in the dark puts it, can only be achieved with certain techniques rather than occultism or obscure interactions with the instrument.
Sometimes it appears to me as if Wim was also speaking in whole beat. As interesting as his videos are, I tend to get a bit impatient.
Just wrong:
Finck/Tomascheks Metronome marking is Half note = 112. Your sped up version is not at that speed, but rather at 150, i.e. way faster, in order to make tomaschek seem ridiculous to your viewers. Dont believe this guy, always fact check!
The original, un-spedup version is much closer to tomascheks indication.
yes, always fact check. Behind a keyboard ☺️
Very annoying and patronising in presentation
ironically, I had to speed up the video
I didn't think that it was at all. I thought it was very well done.
@@musik350 His accent is annoying? Good grief, he's obviously not speaking his first language. I love hearing people speak English with lots of different accents and I don't mind hearing them speak slowly when they have something to say. Which of the scores of English accents of people for whom it is their first language do you find annoying?
@@anthonymccarthy4164 I don't get your last sentence, furthermore, I'm no native speaker either. It's just a matter of personal opinion. Nice for you that you can enjoy this, but to me, it's unbearable
@@musik350 I think the intelligent thing for someone to do if they find listening to something "unbearable" is to not listen to it. I'm surprised at how many people don't seem to think of that.
It is very easy to witness the assassination of Mozart: just open UA-cam and hear one of the thousands of performances of the Turkish march played at q=144 and more.
I am the last person on earth who can discuss the double-beat theory, But I think anyone can easily understand that in those executions there is nothing of a march, and nothing of Turkish.
I would like to add that the pianofortes in the life of Mozart had a much slower hammer action and response, and were more rough and coarse to play. It was when the young Franz Liszt showed acrobatic abilities beyond the action and response of the current keyboards, that the company Erard came up with a new mechanism to exploit Liszt as a showman. It makes no sense to me that someone like Mozart would have composed things with consecutive sounds that his own pianoforte would not allow as separate.
Novadays piano races are sick. They don't bring any real musical experiences for listeners. It's impossible to contemplate melodies, textures, rythms.
amazing video, thank you
It’s very simple, if you think of the metronome as a pendulum (which it is), one tick is only half of its period of oscillation, or in other words, a swing from the initial position to the right (or left) is only half of the full cycle, thus for example 60 full periods per minute=120 ticks per minute. So we can assume that in the past a 60 on a music score simple referred to metronome oscillations, not ticks.
Bravo!
Feeling has a tempo of its own.