Tempo Reality Check: Beethoven, 9th symphony - Feat. J.E.Gardiner
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- Опубліковано 28 чер 2024
- John Eliot Gardiner is one of the best-known conductors in Early Music or HIP. He is also one of the major forces behind the lightning-fast performances of Beethoven, among others. These speeds are justified by the idea that Beethoven used his metronome exactly as we do today. But this often results in compromises with the score. Such as, for example, in his performance of the famous 9th Symphony. A reality check.
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0:00 Why your tempo choice matters!
2:02 Ways to measure the tempo. Reaching the Single Beat tempo is not enough
3:22 Issue 1 - Opening: 8th note triplets instead of 32ds
6:46 Issue 2 - slowing down to reach some 'maestoso'
8:17 Issue 3 - no stringendo in the Scherzo - Trio in 80 instead of 116
13:30 Issue 4 - Adagio also too slow?
14:22 Issue 5 - Bariton solo at "Half tempo"?
23:16 Issue 6 - Maestoso at "Half Tempo"?
These are not minor issues. This single example among many is proof on it’s own that single beat in a lot of cases makes no sense. Logic and common sense tells you this. Slow it down to whole beat and it sounds like music and it’s humanly possible to perform this.
This and many of your videos about Bach and Cherny (and many other composers/opera’s) which also show the ridiculously humanly impossible performances. It’s just an example of how underdeveloped musicology is as a science. Musicians indoctrinated in certain performance practices who end up utterly incapable of logical reasoning and critical thinking.
I sang some superhuman Bach's. My _fast_ mouth was not nearly enough. I had to sing something approximating/bluffing the the real thing. Everyone did the same.
19:33 Haha, this is comical.
Talk talk talk... 22:52 Circus returns.
I would love hearing your recordings of Beethoven's symphonies with a full orchestra!
Your version is astonishing! I wish Beethoven had made it longer.
Opera is my last bastion of music in the 18th century....You can only sing so fast. Thank you opera!
After 1905, Joplin was known for printing, “Do not play this
piece fast. It is never right to play ragtime fast,” on his published sheet music.
Ragtime has been distorted for a century....FASTER FASTER!!
So true, Almost all of Joplin's ragtimes really need that two-step marching/walking/dancing feel to work properly.
That little fragment you played of your recording was a revelation. Suddenly, the baritone solo makes sense! Brilliant!
Love it! Just love it ❤Beethoven's spirit is back to wipe out the non-sense that has prevented us to enjoy his divine message. And with Ludwig many others!
The Scherzo tempi that you mention as being ridiculous reminds me of a Czerny Scherzo from I think op.10 of his, it's either a piano sonata for 4 hands or 2 pianos (would be nice to see you and Alberto doing it in fact) and the Scherzo is marked Presto dotted minim = 132.
So the structural quavers are going by at 13.2 notes a second constantly all the way through, but Czerny also uses semiquavers for the mordents/trills on notes and writes them out fully in a number or cases, which follow on from staccato crochets often, AND sometimes have "a tempo" or "vivace" written over them.
There's one recording I could find and it doesn't do 132 and when it gets to those parts the tempo drops hugely.
It's really funny to find hundreds of scores like this
So Gardiner makes the whole beat choice where it is a must, sometimes even slower, to preserve something resembling music. Otherwise he aims to achieve single beat because that is the tempo indicated.
Why not play the tempo indicated for the whole thing?
How can you be sure they indicated in the same way as we do now, especially given the results of reading them in the modern way are so unmusical?
Gardiner's tempi were measured carefully - you need to explain why they don't really work. This rather shows that MMs read in the modern way are not viable.
I did not understand that part you quote: "...stringendo, which means the tempo should accelerate; BUT then he gives the trio the same metronome marks,... Should one speed up the tempo or keep it the same?" In the scherzo we have half note dotted = 116 (=quarter 348), in the trio whole note = 116 (=quarter 464). So the quarter notes are faster. Where is the contradiction he mentions? By the way in the Czerny piano reduction Czerny gives half note = 116 for the presto, a misprint?
@@dorette-hi4j this does not explain the stringendo indication.
And if Czerny really meant half note = 116, than in double beat it should be quarter note = 116, the half tempo of Wim's. Which also seams problematic.
I've just come across a relatively recent very nice recording of the 9th, conducted by Maximianno Cobra who actually also seems to follow the Whole Beat Theory.
Wonderful! Found him on Spotify, and he has a website with articles about the tempo issue, too. Listening to magical Mozart ouvertures right now...
Dear Mr. Winters, another excellent video. Thanks so much!
I wonder if you know (and if that’s the case, what’s your opinion on) the work of Maximianno Cobra. He’s more on the Talsma interpretation side, but nonetheless worth hearing it.
Salut!
Just as a quick note on the presto being dotted minim = 96.
From plenty of statistical analysis on the metronome marks, a presto tempo using semiquavers (i.e. 4 notes per beat) would be minim = 108. The movement however uses quavers as the main structural note as the semiquavers in the timpani are clearly ornamental (or non-structural, however you best want to phrase it) and thus the 108 would actually go up to something like minim = 144, which when rescaled is indeed dotted minim = 96.
However, in my personal opinion I think 66 would be "correct" (whatever correct means here) and I'd explain that as being that the pulse of the music has moved over to the quaver. So when you're feeling the pulse in quavers here in a 3/4, we would divide the tempo previously by 4 thirds, and that would give us dotted minim = 72. And since we do have faster notes in the timpani, and staccato marks on the smallest structural notes (i.e. on the quavers) this would take the tempo down again by a tiny bit to something like 69 for the dotted minim. Personally I think the semiquavers in the timpani and the staccato dots on the quavers give it away that the tempo should be the slower one and thus feel the pulse in quavers.
Having said that I think there a decent argument for the 96 tempo, at least in theory if not in practice.
Great video. I like the fragments where you speed up to what it would sound like, if they played single beat. It becomes silly.
Grazie mille per approfondimenti riguardo la grandiosa sinfonia di Beethoven!
I have to tell you, if it comes to conductors there is one of less conductors i adore the most and that is Sergiu Celibidache, and i have to admit i was blown away by his performances of the Beethoven Symphonys specially the 9th one he did in my opinion the best of all conductors because he really got the point of Beethoven himself.
Interesting fact what he sad is that the last movement with the Choir is totally bad written because Beethoven was in hurry to write that movement, BUT the other 3 movements like he says are absolutley magnificent written.
And of course I know how Celibidache threatet his orchestra and student and so on and i also disagree with his behavior but lets get on and see his real strenght what this man knew about music and philosophic things of music he explained to musicians and the rest of the world.
Do any body knows were to get the pendulum video at the begining of
When did the whole-beat approach change to half beat? I think the early recordings of Furtwangler are even faster than contemporary tempo. You have once published on your channel a recording of Tchaikovsky in a supposedly correct beat. Hovewer it doesn't make much sence. There are conductors from the times of Tchaikovsky that were recorded in the early XX century
And they play (much) slower compared to single beat. There are videos on the channel answering your question - our book will dedicate an entire part to it
19:34 Those who live by the sword will die by the sword. I wouldn't even call the "single-beaters" by that name as they obviously do not live by their convictions. Their practice is a modified single-beat called "my comfort level". Maybe the "my tempos" ?
We know the music so well so we fill in the gaps.... - THIS is the whole point. True true true true!
Thanks! Your point is interesting and strong -- but why does it take so many tens of minutes to say it?
I mean: Those who know and appreciate your obviously _important_ insight -- don't need the playing around the point. And those who don't understand it - won't understand it in some short minutes.
If you tell your point/theme in first minute or two, creating interest, and then expand it, and then show the climax, we'd have some really interesting -- talk/music.
11:40 _This_ is the thing to show during _first_ minute! Everyone will understand and be curious!
16:08 Gardiner, _below_ half tempo. What, why? Again a good point to sell during first minute. I would be _really_ interested, immediately.
Just like Benjamin Zander's recording, I think you're absolutely right in intepreting the metronome mark for the Trio, but I also still think it sounds utterly ridiculous. Norrington's way (twice as slow) is equally ridiculous. In my view, Gardiner's approach is the fastest way you could possibly play that trio.
@@dorette-hi4j Very interesting observation about Norrington. Especially when Zander then says Beethoven calls the trio Presto and even briefly considered Prestissimo.
I see your point, but, as an example, if you play the start of the Ode to Joy at half tempo it becomes ridiculously slow for being a Presto (just set this video at 50% speed and you'll get the point).
He already played the entire symphony at half tempo.
First!
This world hates the truth, loves the lie.
The tempo in the alla marcha section (tenor solo) is always too fast. Can anyone March to it? Give the poor tenor a chance. It work best at 60 bpm or so.
I fancy an idea that music before Beethoven was rather slower in tempo. Musicians up until Beethoven’s time were mostly employed as court musicians who produced music for aristocracy. I would contend that the 18th-century aristocracy preferred more leisurely music or music performed at a slower tempo, whereas pedestrian music (I.e. music for popular entertainment) was generally quicker in tempo. But after the French Revolution, perhaps the cultural impulse forced a change to the long standing tradition and music became faster and faster.
It's not so much that they preferred music at a slower tempo, it's that they were amateur musicians who literally couldn't play at lightning speed. Lots of baroque and classical music was commissioned by / for aristocrats, and written for their level of talent.
No, it's not a detail!
I disagree with you on almost everything - but i love the passion, detail and academia and seriousness you take. Its amazing and great!
Can you give some reasons why you disagree on almost everything?
So it doesn't matter if someone spreads false, ahistorical, pseudoscientific theories as long as he does it with "passion and seriousness"?
If you want to be true to Beethoven's metronome marks, the only solution is whole beat metronome practice. There is no doubt in my mind. And I can only begin to imagine how frustrating it must be for Wim to be ignored by pretty much everyone.
On a broader historical scale, the fast tempos just don't make sense to me. Everyone was slower - every THING was slower. Of course it was beginning to speed up around the same time music drifted from the private residence to the concert hall, but it still probably wasn't very fast yet. Moreover, Beethoven was influenced by the previous greats, whose music he would've heard played at a much slower tempo than some performers were already playing it at that time.
@@dorette-hi4j They played fast within their frame of reference.
I think both are wrong. There you go. Why must everything be so black and white? You, Mr. Winters have become so dogmatic in your twisted tempo theory. If you use some logic you will discover that it was virtually impossible for Beethoven to indicate proper tempos on a metronome because of its insufficiencies and shortcomings. It was a brand new apparatus that nobody, not even Schumann or Beethoven, knew how to use properly. Using a metronome properly, believe it or not, has a high learning curve and is not as easy as it looks. This wasn't because Beethoven and Schumann were stupid, but rather, because the slowest speed of 50 and fastest speed of 160 (on the older models) was not a large enough range to accommodate many examples. Otherwise, what would have been the reason to increase this range to 40-208? If Maelzel's first patent was so perfect and great (with a range of 50-160) then why did he increase this range to 40-208 in the later model? The fastest speed Beethoven had on his metronome was 160 bpm. What if he wanted 180? Obviously, he couldn't have indicated it. Once again, why did Maelzel increase the max to 208 bpm? Most likely to make up for the problem of not being able to indicate anything faster than 160, such as 180. But now, 208 bpm becomes the next problem because it, too, is limiting and does not allow composers to indicate anything faster, such as 216. The converse is true with anything slower than 40 bpm. In short, the metronome was limiting in its possible range and because of this it gave composers problems and headaches trying to indicate the proper speed for their music. For example, the first movt. of the Hammerklavier Beethoven marks quarter = 138, which is obviously too fast. However, playing in whole beat translates to quarter = 69 in single beat, which obviously is too slow. Here is my theory: Beethoven did indeed use whole beat (I agree with you here at least, Mr. Winters) and he wanted this movement to be 192 bpm (96 bpm in single beat), but since 160 was the fastest possible metronome number he thought to himself, "fuck it, there's no way to indicate 192 bpm on Maelzel's shitty-ass invention, so I guess I will have to choose a slower speed like 138." The reason Beethoven didn't choose 160 bpm was most likely because this fastest of all metronome speeds would be mistaken for a Presto. Thus, I blame this problem on Maelzel's metronome which was far from optimal and difficult to work with.
@@dorette-hi4jAre you suggesting that composers used whole beat or single beat?
@@dorette-hi4j If Beethoven intended those ultra-fast speeds, such as the half note=138 for the opening Hammerklavier movement, why did he write Allegro instead of Prestissimo, given that the tempo in single-beat is at the upper limit of what is humanly possible? I’m not saying that whole-beat absolutism is the answer. The tempo in whole beat is not allegro either (it’s basically moderato).
But apart from single- or whole-beat absolutism, performers have three choices:
1. Aim for the single-beat tempo but end up playing slower for musical or practical reasons.
2. Consider the whole-beat tempo a baseline, and then play faster as one is musically inclined, guided by the tempo words (allegro, etc.)
3. Ignore the metronome indication
I personally think that #2 results in interpretations most in line with composers’ intentions, but ultimately I think that promoting common sense and musicality are more important than convincing people of the right way to read a metronome indication.
@@dorette-hi4j I actually never commented on playability. The issue is whether classical music was intended to be played as fast as possible. If interpreted in single beat, gradients of tempo (such as allegro vs allegro vivace vs presto vs prestissimo) get lost as everything just whooshes by. Have you seen Wim’s series of videos on Czerny’s metronome indications for the Bach Inventions? In single beat, many of them are even more absurd than the Hammerklavier. For instance, Czerny designated the tempo of Invention #1 as “allegro vivace” and quarter=138. At that metronome mark, it is not allegro vivace; it is prestissimo+++. Again, I’m not saying that whole beat absolutism is the answer; it doesn’t make Invention #1 allegro vivace either. But allegro vivace can be reached by speeding up from whole beat as one becomes proficient at the piece. I agree with @BachScholar’s view that tempi in whole beat were practice tempi.
@@dorette-hi4j Finding the right practice tempo is actually quite difficult. If it’s too slow, you’ll never develop the ability to play at performance speed. If it’s too fast, you’ll develop habits of cutting corners or overlooking important nuances. The historical metronome indications (in whole beat) are actually very helpful in finding the right practice tempo (as @BachScholar pointed out in his videos on Burgmuller’s Op. 100 metronome indications). As to your comment that Bach’s Invention #1 at quarter=138 is allegro due to the speed of quarter notes, would Bach have considered such a performance allegro? If he heard the many recordings where quarter=70-80, would he have said, “That’s adagio!”
@@dorette-hi4j So, what MM indications would you recommend for the Hammerklavier first movement and Invention #1, and what tempo words would you put alongside them?
Please, do not make us hear those kind of performances, I cannot stand them. I like to hear only your performances or your associates’ ones.