Quote:
Originally Posted by David C Coleman
But I like my Beethoven to have to time take in a little more air!! (Purely personal of course)
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Interesting that you say "MY" Beethoven, I respect you for that, and I respect your personal opinion and preferences.
However, there is one thing we should be aware of as listeners when judging performances of Beethoven, especially in relation to tempo. When a conductor approaches Beethoven, in almost every movement of every symphony he is faced with an immediate and difficult problem, both practically and philosophically.
Beethoven's mm markings are "too fast".
There have been attempts to perform and record the symphonies at the exact tempos that Beethoven calls for (i.e. Norrington). While these efforts are interesting
documents in that they give us an idea of "what it would sound like
if...", they are hardly examples of standard practice or good music making. So then for a "normal" performance, the question becomes "how much slower is OK" before Beethoven's intentions become twisted into something that destroys the
character of the movement as he intended it?
Let me elaborate. The first mvmt of the 5th Symphony is indicated at quarter note = 108. I defy any conductor with a medium sized orchestra (strings 12-10-8-6-4 or something...) to try that. It's almost impossible. 104 still sounds a little hurried, while 96-100 has become a sort of "standard". But when the tempo drops below 96, say to 88 or so,
the music suddenly takes on a different "character"... it's not just
slower, it begins to communicate something very different, sets a different mood. These things are very subjective, but
very real, as a trained and experienced ear will pick up on it immediately.
With this said, the responsible conductor's goal then is to imagine the tempo that Beethoven indicates (as a sort of maximum), and then
find out how much slower it can be done without changing the character. An incredibly daunting task, in my opinion the hardest tempo decision process in all of Classical music.
THIS is where COBRA has FAILED.
He has distorted the music through an abstract theory that does not come from within the music and completely taken away the
character that Beethoven intended.