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I was just wondering, how often do you come across a piece of music and think "that tempo marking is just too fast", or "but if I add these notes it sounds better"...? I mean, I trust they all knew what they were doing and all, but...let's take Alkan's Délire, Opus 63 No. 29, for example; it's *too* fast! I mean, um, it goes without saying it'll be fast, I don't argue "it's too hard" or some such, I just find that the tempo of 120 minims a minute, with the right hand comprising entirely of tripleted quavers, fails to bring out the true beauty and real loveliness of those notes...um...so! The question is: should I ignore impulse (to play at approaching a *quarter* the speed) as it is simply too far removed from the score (perhaps hoping to stumble upon a fondness for it at such a velocity {I should note: I *do* understand the reason for the tempo in a sense; the character of the piece is entirely different at the separate MMs, I merely consider the slower the superior}; perhaps even it is my own inadequacy that makes the piece seem lesser in a sense and, as such, should learn it at the higher tempo until I'm *sure* I prefer it slower {and in such a case, still should the tempo not waver so much?}) or should I just do it slower?


Oh, and whilst I'm sure I'll be condemned, what about adding or changing notes? I'm not talking willy-nilly (though that is awfully good fun); an example that comes to mind is Chopin's Opus 34 No.2 where my hands beg me to play, in bar 57, three crotchets of value B, A, G# instead of the dotted minim B, followed by placing fermatas over the whole of the next bar, an especially long one at the end of bar 58...um...I know it's wrong, but the yearning is *so* strong to play it as such the first time through and play as Chopin wrote for the repeat...is this terribly wrong? I'm sure you've all felt and done as I do, if not still continuing to do so...I ask for nothing more than incomparable advice I hope you're all well as you read this and thank you for doing so!
Xxxx

Well, *um* no. I hope you're all well, too (Yes, um, {really})!

Is there some trend in recent years where tastes are changing towards favoring slower tempos? It seems like every youtube video I watch, someone is always complaining about how so and so is playing a piece too fast to the point where the commenter thinks that the music has been compromised in some way. It's like people want to over-romanticize things. Maybe it's me, but I prefer for performances to err on the side of being quicker than languishing in slowness.

"terribly" wrong?!??! Not sure really, and I'm speaking as a composer here.

If someone alters my works slightly because of a reason, I can understand that: Heck I'd like some artistic freedom when performing my music. But there needs to be respect and respect comes from understanding.

If you just 'feel' that you'd like to alter notes in a Chopin work, then you probably need more studying and theoretical background...

That said all the above don't really apply for concerts, recitals and exams, right? You can't show up and play a Bach prelude in a different key 'because my girlfriend said it sounded better in C#minor'.

I seem to remember some musicological study that showed that performances of classical music had slowed down over the course of the twentieth century. So maybe it's not really all that recent, but part of a longer trend. I know that decades ago some of Richter's recordings were already controversial because of slow tempi.

I have a theory that people have become so saturated with music and other sound which seems to surround them at all times in the modern world, that it has had the effect of clogging up their ability to mentally register what they are hearing when it is at high speed, especially when it is something as fine-grained as classical music. So, the music has slowed down to compensate.

http://jeremydenk.net/blog/2009/12/18/whose-brahms/

relevant!

I often like to hear a piece played at a slower tempo sometimes even rediculously so - why not.
I suppose this woul dnot apply to a formal "paid for " performance.
Same applies to changes and additions: I loved Victor Borg's messing about.

I often play pieces more slowly than I hear conventionally. Mainly because I want to hear the notes, and not "get them over with". My piano has a lot of sustain that I like to take advantage of, kind of opposite to a harpsichord, where quick pieces are the norm due to little sustain.

Secondly, to me, when some pieces are played to quickly, they start to sound a little "cartoon-like", or lose their character.

Scott Joplin always complained that pianists played his ragtime music too quickly . Mozart said that his music should 'flow like oil'. Some composers just give you the metronome markings and expect you to stick to them; others (especially contemporary composers) even tell you exactly how long the pieces should last, to the nearest second...

And Beethoven's metronome marking for his Hammerklavier seemed impossibly fast and unplayable - until Peter Serkin (I think) played and recorded it at that speed. And now HJ Lim's new CD recording also adheres to that metronome marking, with thrilling results.

in Chopin's études the metronome-marks are mostly inhuman, esp. regarding todays heavier instruments, so, do not try to oblige, and, contrary to that, in Liszt's Sonata one should adhere to the text as faithfully as possible, do not add notes, esp. in the left hand.

What about Schumann's metronome markings? Even Clara didn't play them as fast as he marked them! Who has ever played Traumerei at quarter = 100?

pg

That's interesting because I'm not sure I'd like them played faster then normal by most pros anyway. But maybe that's only because I'm used to hearing them at a certain speed.

But one pretty common explanation is that this was only because some pianists of his time played ragtime incredibly fast.

And what to make of Schumann's directive in the 1st movement of the G minor Sonata: 'So rasch wie moglich' (As quickly as possible), then towards the end 'Schneller' (Faster) and finally 'Noch Schneller' (Still faster).

Wonder what Clara made of that.

+1

I must say that Schumann seems to have been a very special man! Regarding Schumann's G minor sonata, I can only interpret his "So rasch wie moglich" in one way: Everyone who can read notes, can play the piece, haha! Because "as quckly as possible", should be the same as "as fast as you CAN" or "as fast as YOU can"! In other words, if you are playing this piece at an extremely slow tempo, you might still be following the directions, because the tempo you play it at should always be as fast as possible! If extremely slow is the fastest you can play it, then you play it at the correct tempo! Hence, the piece becomes pretty available for almost everyone who can read notes

Metronomes gone wild

Having read Metronomes gone wild, a couple of thoughts spring to mind; it's easy to write an error and never see it. So...perhaps some of those dotted crotchets = 126 are meant to be dotted quavers = 126, for example? And, um, a secondary thought is that maybe (and I have *zero* evidence to support this) these metronome markings indicate the maximum tempo the composer would prefer the piece to be performed?
Xxx

Well that is interesting. I never thought of it quite that way.

For example, I'm working on a piece by Prokofiev that gives a metronome marking of a quarter note = 444!! It would be logical that 144 was the intended number, but that seems somewhat too fast for the Allegretto tempo marking, so I'm not sure what it really should be.