Top speed and weird opening of RR 8.1.22

[rauschwerk]

Whereas I have confidence in Beethoven knowing what he was up to. The interpretation of terms such as Allegro ma non troppo, e un poco maestoso have varied greatly over the past couple of centuries, or so. According to Rees, Czerny et al, Beethoven was most displeased at the slow tempi at which some played his music. The metronome marking Beethoven dictated to his nephew Carl for the 9th Symphony were there to avoid the work being performed at a slower tempi than he intended.

Of course, but surely only a fool would perform every bar of a movement at the speed which Beethoven meant for the opening bars?

[RichardB]

I think RO's point, rather, is that there is a danger of privileging Beethoven's attempts to apply a recently developed little machine to living breathing music

- which again hardly respects Beethoven's compositional skills. Composers often embrace new technology without it compromising the life and breath of their work. He had been using metronome markings since about 1815 and is reasonably consistent in the relation of verbal indications to beats-per-minute. The onus is really on performers who see fit to ignore these suggestions to explain why they do so.

[cloughie]

- which again hardly respects Beethoven's compositional skills. Composers often embrace new technology without it compromising the life and breath of their work. He had been using metronome markings since about 1815 and is reasonably consistent in the relation of verbal indications to beats-per-minute. The onus is really on performers who see fit to ignore these suggestions to explain why they do so.

I guess no-one ever told Otto Klemperer!

[Serial_Apologist]

I guess no-one ever told Otto Klemperer!

About the pacing of the Emperer?

[RichardB]

I guess no-one ever told Otto Klemperer!

I don't think he'd have recognised the concept of playing Beethoven's own tempi as valid, any more than he did the idea of playing the instruments Beethoven knew, having subscribed to the later 19th century image of Beethoven and his music, as many people still do of course. As I've remarked before, it's no coincidence that the high point of colonialism in the world coincided with a parallel compulsion to also foist on (for example) Beethoven's music the benefit of a supposedly more enlightened "civilisation" than existed in the 1820s - hence the HUPP (historically uninformed performance practice) movement represented by Klemperer et al.

[Bryn]

Of course, but surely only a fool would perform every bar of a movement at the speed which Beethoven meant for the opening bars?

Oh, indeed, but neither were they there to be ignored. They set the pace of the movement they head, though, not just for the opening bars, and neither Savall nor Krivine stick strictly as if by clockwork.

[cloughie]

I don't think he'd have recognised the concept of playing Beethoven's own tempi as valid, any more than he did the idea of playing the instruments Beethoven knew, having subscribed to the later 19th century image of Beethoven and his music, as many people still do of course. As I've remarked before, it's no coincidence that the high point of colonialism in the world coincided with a parallel compulsion to also foist on (for example) Beethoven's music the benefit of a supposedly more enlightened "civilisation" than existed in the 1820s - hence the HUPP (historically uninformed performance practice) movement represented by Klemperer et al.

I suppose there’s room for many approaches in this highly tolerant century!

[jayne lee wilson]

I feel it is a pity - though a vital point of the musical execution - we tend to get hung up on tempi. As I implied in #120, the 9th Symphony has some extreme formal innovations in every movement, most particularly in the 1st and last. As we discussed recently, this was an essential part of late-Beethoven, as evinced by the Missa Solemnis and the Late String Quartets.

Whether relatively fast or slow tempi make such structural inventiveness more or less clear is yet another point of debate; personally I do find faster tempi help me apprehend the larger structural vision in the act of listening... especially in the 9th Symphony.

[RichardB]

I suppose there’s room for many approaches in this highly tolerant century!

Indeed there is, but we have to recognise HUPP for what it is!

[cloughie]

Indeed there is, but we have to recognise HUPP for what it is!

…and similarly HIPP for what it has become! and Richard I do;’t really wish to pursue this discussion further - all been aired bedfore and never gets anywhere!

[RichardB]

…and similarly HIPP for what it has become!

If you don't want to continue this line of discussion fair enough - but I'm bound to wonder what is meant by "what it has become". As we've said, there's room in the world for HIPP and HUPP and various shades that are neither completely one or the other. But let's recognise each of them as a different stage in the understanding and communication of historical musics. HIPP and various more or less diluted versions of it are gradually replacing HUPP, possibly eventually to be replaced by something else (time travel?), just as the musical style represented by Haydn and Mozart was replaced by that represented by Schubert and Beethoven, and so on. Those are all facts, not opinions.

[gradus]

Klemperer was born in 1885 and would I imagine have heard, as a young man, artists performing who were near contemporaries of Beethoven or at the least, who began performing within a generation of Beethoven's death. Isn't that being historically informed?

[RichardB]

Klemperer was born in 1885 and would I imagine have heard, as a young man, artists performing who were near contemporaries of Beethoven or at the least, who began performing within a generation of Beethoven's death. Isn't that being historically informed?

As I said, he wouldn't have seen the point of what goes into being "historically informed" in the late 20th/early 21st century sense. He might or might not have been interested in the instruments, instrumental balances, tempi, acoustics, playing styles and so on that were current in the 1820s (or the 1720s when performing Bach) but the idea of actually letting them inform his performances wouldn't have occurred to him.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I don't think he'd have recognised the concept of playing Beethoven's own tempi as valid, any more than he did the idea of playing the instruments Beethoven knew, having subscribed to the later 19th century image of Beethoven and his music, as many people still do of course. As I've remarked before, it's no coincidence that the high point of colonialism in the world coincided with a parallel compulsion to also foist on (for example) Beethoven's music the benefit of a supposedly more enlightened "civilisation" than existed in the 1820s - hence the HUPP (historically uninformed performance practice) movement represented by Klemperer et al.

Difficult to generalise but I think some in the twenties and thirties were attempting to perform Beethoven at something like his metronome markings - despite prevalent colonialism ! Schnabel for example - way faster than say Barenboim or Pollini. He could claim to be , in some ways , more historically informed than any contemporary (forte) or non forte pianist having been in the Beethoven Czerny , Liszt , Leischtisky tuition line.
Another speedy Beethoven conductor - Toscanini - though , to your point , he was a bit of a score tinkerer.
I suspect things have got slower because of the demands for perfection In the recording process and, as a consequence in live performance. There is worryingly little risk taking these days..

[jayne lee wilson]

Difficult to generalise but I think some in the twenties and thirties were attempting to perform Beethoven at something like his metronome markings - despite prevalent colonialism ! Schnabel for example - way faster than say Barenboim or Pollini. He could claim to be , in some ways , more historically informed than any contemporary (forte) or non forte pianist having been in the Beethoven Czerny , Liszt , Leischtisky tuition line.
Another speedy Beethoven conductor - Toscanini - though , to your point , he was a bit of a score tinkerer.
I suspect things have got slower because of the demands for perfection In the recording process and, as a consequence in live performance. There is worryingly little risk taking these days..

Which brings us back to Savall, recorded live and as thrillingly risky as you could wish!

But what about those cycles recorded in the lead-up to the 2020 celebrations? Haselbock with the OWA, not only live but taped in the halls Beethoven knew; lean and stark, quick and up-and-at-you (tip: avoid 3 and 9). Or Adam Fischer with the DCO on Naxos, as daringly idiosyncratic as we've had since Mengelberg's 1940s Amsterdam set?

Or HM's own continuing Beethoven 20/27 series, with a stunning succession of symphonies and concertos from such as the AAMB or Freiburg Baroque, waking us all up - sharp - with their fresh ideas and S-O-T-A recorded sound... Jacobs' Missa Solemnis....wow.

The 4th Piano Concerto, so freely and creatively realised (inspired by LvB's own unpublished score variants, probably used (as described by Czerny) in his own performances) by Cascioli and Minasi on HM?
C/w op.61a, performances like no other! Start with this one if you really want new Beethovenian ears...!

Plenty of risktaking in Beethoven right now, you just need to keep up with the newsfeed somewhere......(and get listening!)...