INTERMISSION:
The Metronome
A device that produces an audible click or other sound at a regular interval that can be set by the user, typically in beats per minute (BPM). Generally drives beginning musicians stark, raving mad.
#16
Symphony No.5 in C minor, Op. 67
Beethoven
1808
No one complained that both video versions I posted treat the
Symphony like a runaway locomotive though, making it reminiscent of
Bugs Bunny in
"What's Opera, Doc"?
The whole idea of
Beethoven's Fifth in the modern era seems to have been to cram it on one side of an LP.
But it brings up a great side topic - The Question of
Tempo
The metronome was an invention of Beethoven's day; he didn't have access to it when he was writing his early symphonies. But later, he came into contact with it and loved the device.
"He immediately buys one and sits down and starts going back over all his old scores and putting in metronome markings. And he picked a tempo for the Fifth Symphony that even today sounds really, astonishingly fast."
[
The First Four Notes: Beethoven's Fifth And The Human Imagination by
Matthew Guerrieri, 2012]
The setting he chose was 108 beats per minute - so fast, so hard to play, Guerrieri says, that people have been theorizing for centuries about if and why
Beethoven might have mis-marked his own symphony. A broken metronome? Advancing deafness? Nobody knows.
You might well wonder that it makes it sound like the metronome was some radical, completely new sort of device requiring some kind of knowledge to operate: Isn't a metronome really just a simple, mechanical *conductor*, and would have been thought of as such by composers of the day? Meaning, though he "didn't have access to it", we always have access to something akin to it, in our heads, that thought-tapping to keep an even tempo, no? Am I missing something?
Oh, yes the tempos were pretty damned brisk, and so much so that many modern scholars have theorized that Beethoven's metronome was not working properly.
But the introduction of the metronome
was actually controversial:
Here's a
FUN FACT associated with his markings: When the
Kolisch Quartet performed
Beethoven's Op. 95 quartet in Paris according to the indicated metronome markings a fistfight ensued.
A couple of years ago the
Eybler Quartet from Canada released their recording of three of Beethoven's string quartets (and performed them live as well) played at Beethoven's metronome markings (some movements faster, some slower than the accepted norm). The reactions have been quite mixed.
But
Beethoven loved the metronome, and wrote, in 1817:
"I have long been thinking of abandoning these nonsensical terms allegro, andante, adagio, presto, and Malzel's metronome gives us the best opportunity to do so. I give you my word here and now that I will never use them again in any of my new compositions."
And well, yes, they had tempo markings.
Before the metronome it was customary to describe the tempo of a piece by one or more words (usually in Italian).
You see, it was difficult to specify the tempo and mood of a composition; even though attempts were made using pendulums or the human pulse. And conventions that governed musical composition were so strong that composers didn't need to indicate tempo: For example, the first movement of
Bach's
Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 has no tempo or mood indication whatsoever. Often in Baroque and Renaissance music the musical form or genre implied a rough tempo:
Minuets were stately, slower than a
Viennese waltz.
So tempos were
"understood" to be approximate speeds based on commonly accepted tempo markings:
Andante would be at "a walking pace"
Allegro is fast, quick, and bright
Allegretto is moderately fast
and so on . .
These were quite helpful, especially when a piece (based on the observations and experience or the musician) might be assumed to be played at a considerably faster or slower pace. Musicians instinctively
knew how fast or slow Adagio or Presto would be.
Certainly some composers of the late romantic era are reported to have been free with tempi, and regarded the metronome markings mostly as a recommendation or a "starting tempo".
Many folks, amateurs and experts alike, will often complain about the tempos in a piece when critiquing them. But recordings and performances we grew up with and the interpretive choices the artists made have become an integral part of our outlook on any of the masterworks.
But to answer the question: Yes!
The metronome actually was "some radical, completely new sort of device".
Some folks contend that we're used to hearing Beethoven's symphonies at a slower tempo than he intended them simply because no orchestra could manage it so they had to slow it down.
So, here is Beethoven's
"Moonlight" Sonata 3rd movement played in the original "intended" tempo. Simply amazing.
Surprisingly to some, this is almost how fast it is usually performed. (BTW, I've attempted this piece, and although it's a bit tough, I can manage to play all of it; the real problem is that it's such a marathon to perform . . . it's exhausting to keep up this level of virtuosity for six minutes - and, surprisingly, I was actually attempting it very close to this tempo).
Beethoven "Moonlight" Sonata, III "Presto Agitato" Valentina Lisitsa
:angel:
So . . . I think all the controversy around
Beethoven's metronome being broken is hogwash. Beethoven was a revolutionary in many ways, and was a pretty meticulous composer. I doubt that he would have been so very mistaken about something as basic as his own tempos of his own works.
Yeah, sure, the symphonies
are very difficult at those tempos . . . .
Beethoven's Fifth at 160 BPM
That's some crazy virtuosic performances there. Seeing someone physically play like that boggles the mind. The finger strength alone, not to mention the dexterity. Good Gawd.
