Beethoven's Metronome Markings: Tempo choices

Beethoven and the Metronome

Musicians have long puzzled over Beethoven's metronome markings.  To our ears many of his choices seem too fast. Conductors have had to make a conscious choice whether or not to heed the markings he put in the music.

Radio Lab

In a show originally aired in February of this year (which I heard last night while driving home from my concert), the Public Radio show, Radio Lab bravely dove into the issue. Click on the link and you can listen to the show. The hosts enlist the help of Alan Pierson, conductor of the Brooklyn Philharmonic and a quartet of string players from the Philharmonic to play excerpts from the 3rd and 5th Symphonies at Beethoven's expressed markings.

The show's participants cite four of the most commonly listed reasons for why Beethoven may have chosen his speedy markings:

1. Defective metronome -- they dismiss this out of hand with a quick reference to an expert. More about this later.

2. Copyists' errors -- they find this explanation untenable and so do I.

3. Deafness/disregard acoustical considerations (hall, instrument response time, etc.). This one may have some merit, but ultimately may not explain some of the more extreme speeds he chose.

4. Vierordt's Law. Karl von Vierordt found that people tend to overestimate short durations of time and underestimate long. He found a "point of indifference" existed at around 94-96 beats per minute. I found the hosts' desire to settle upon this explanation as the answer in the last few minutes of the show to be lacking in support and a bit foggy in logic. Their explanations fail to account for such details as beat unit (quarter note, half note, etc.) or beat subdivisions used in a piece of music, both of which have a direct bearing on the pace of the beat assigned to a piece.

The ability to find a tempo that brings out the essence of a piece is one of the most important skills for a performer. Beethoven was one of the most highly trained musicians of his time and was perfectly able to replicate steady, predictable tempos when desired. Thus, I don't find the show's final explanation for the fast tempos to be wholly acceptable.

The Scientists

The issue came up again last month in an unlikely source -- the October issue of Notices of the American Mathematical Society. In the article titled, "Was Something Wrong With Beethoven's Metronome" the authors -- scientists, engineers and mathematicians -- provide a view on the subject not usually covered by musicians.  As such it is worth exploring and may provide a definitive answer to the perennial problem of whether to use Beethoven's expressed markings.

The article reopens the debate about the condition of Beethoven's metronome. As mentioned in the Radio Lab show, his original metronome has been found. However, not mentioned in the show is the fact that the weight at the bottom of the oscillating beam (the wand with the metronome markings on it) is missing! Thus, the "expert" on the show who states that the metronome "worked just fine", doesn't say what was used for the fixed weight or wherea substitue weight was placed when the device was tested.

The early metronomes were constructed using double pendula -- two weights -- a fixed weight on the bottom, usually hidden in the wooden housing and a movable one near the top end of the beam. The position of the fixed weight was set by the manufacturer and the movable weight was calibrated for adjustment by the performer.

At some point after getting his metronome, Beethoven, like countless other musicians after him, dropped his and damaged it.  He says in a letter that he is upset and is delaying the publishing of his Hammerklavier Sonata because his metronome is not working properly.

The Mathematical Society publication's authors study two scenarios.

First, Beethoven drops his metronome and it falls standing up on the floor.  The fixed weight shifts down the beam so it is now farther away from the balance point. They show that this maladjusted metronome would register a different calibration of tempos.  As an experiment, for the "correct" metronome they place the fixed weight at 5 cm from the balance point; on the broken one they place it for comparison at 7 cm from the balance point.

Their results show that for fast tempi, the "broken" metronome in this case will go slower than the factory calibrated one. In order to get the "broken" metronome to beat at the same speed as the "correct" one, a higher calibrated speed needs to be chosen.

Second, the metronome falls upside down and the fixed weight shifts towards the balance point. Here's a description of what might have happened from the article: 

Let’s envision the following hypothetical scenario. Unknown to him, the metronome Beethoven 

is working with is damaged in the sense that the heavy weight hidden by the wooden case

has been displaced. Assume Beethoven puts the movable weight on his metronome to correspond

to the marking of approximately ♩=110. Somewhat puzzled perhaps, he finds the visibly observed

marking seems far too slow, around ♩=70 to 80. The markings on the metronome beam 

with the light movable weight that he can clearly see do not correspond to his desired tempo.

Beethoven, dissatisfied with the slow movement of the visible metronome beam, then

moves the weight until he is satisfied with the much higher marking.

Thus, in this experiment, a marking of ♩=110 on the correct metronome would correspond in speed observed to ♩=138 on the broken one. 

While a bold hypothesis, it's hard to argue with its suppositions. 

There is a small trend in symphonic music of performing Beethoven's symphonies at his prescribed metronome markings. Perhaps these recent investigations will put this practice to rest.

Here are some clips of performances using these speeds. Also scroll down to sample noted performances at different tempos.

Metronomes also have some "off-label" uses.  Runners sometimes use a metronome to calculate or maintain a particular pace by timing foot strikes with the beat. Elite runners have a gait that is about 180 strides per minute.

In a related story, I also heard on the radio yesterday that metronomes are being used to help improve chest compression technique during the administration of CPR.  It seems that blood circulates best when the heart is compressed at around 100 times per minute.  The show's experts suggested using Walter Carlos' "Fifth of Beethoven" or Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" as reference points.

I prefer the first movement of Beethoven's Violin Concerto!!

Myth buster #2 -- Talent can flourish in any environment

Here's another good one: Artists are freaks of nature -- they're born with their abilities intact, don't need to work hard at what they do to achieve astounding results, etc. Best of all, the belief that talent is sui generis, doesn't need a particular environment in which to flourish.

Mozart is often held up as the most famous example of this. The movie, "Amadeus", exploits this idea.

However, the evidence doesn't support this theory.  Yes, Mozart was born with talent, but his environment and upbringing had much more to do with it.  At age 3 his father started him on a rigorous regimen of musical training. After a few years of development he took the kids on tours of Europe, exposing them to music by other composers, among other things. For more on this, read Neil Zaslaw's essay, Mozart as Working Stiff

Indeed, environment is extremely important in the development of talent. Young musicians need to be in a place where others like them abound, where the exchange of ideas, performances, etc. is easy and frequent. Geoff Colvin writes in his book, "Talent Is Overrated" that most young artists quickly absorb what their first teachers have to give them and then move on to a "master teacher" and often move to a different location, usually an urban center or place where artists live in close proximity.

Mozart eventually ended up in Vienna, the musical capitol of the Western World. It was a rich environment with dozens of composers, concerts everywhere.  A great place to thrive for a musician at the time.

For a similar view on the musical development of J.S. Bach, read James R. Gaines'  "Evening in the Palace of Reason" By reading it, I discovered that Bach came from a family of musicians and composers dating back to a century before his birth. Making music for him was as commonplace as video gaming is today!

One more example and then I'll stop. From the world of jazz:

It's easy to imagine that jazz musicians, because they improvise for a living and cultivate a "hip", aloof image, don't put in the hard work or need the company of others to develop. Nothing could be farther from the truth!

You only need to read about Kansas City in the 30's or Harlem in the mid-20th century to find out that these places were hotbeds of activity. Musicians at one club would go across the street on their breaks to another club to listen to or sit with another group.  There were contests and all-star nights.

Minton's playhouse in Harlem is often cited as the place where Bebop was born. Read the wikipedia entry for Minton's, especially the sections on Monday Celebrity Nights, Cutting Sessions and Duels and Sitting in at Minton's to get an idea of the kind of crucible this environment was for the careers of many of the great jazz artists of the 1950's.

The Five Spot was another club in Manhattan in the East Village where jazz musicians, Beat poets, writers and abstract expressionist artists gathered. It's hard to believe that much of the music, poetry, art of the 1950s would have been produced without these places.

Below is a painting by Stan Landsaman  that was hung in the Five Spot and a photo of the club on a busy night.

Myth buster #1 - you've either got it or you don't

The main purpose of this blog is to pull back the curtain a bit and reveal some of the "secrets" of the life of a professional musician.

One of the most common myths regarding great artists is that they are somehow born with great talent and simply get to play around with it while others struggle mightily just to sing in tune or play a scale.  While it's true that each of us is unique and born with certain aptitudes and proclivities, research has shown that with creativity, it's mostly nurture and a little nature instead of the other way around.

In his book, "Talent Is Overrated", Geoff Colvin states what many other researchers have found: that composers and performers become successful through arduous practice and relentless self-evaluation.  He states that, for these artists, practice is "highly demanding mentally. . . continually seeking exactly those elements of performance that are unsatisfactory and then trying one's hardest to make them better places enormous strain on anyone's mental abilities."

He also notes that this kind of deliberate practice isn't much fun. "Doing things we know how to do well is enjoyable, and that's exactly the opposite of what deliberate practice demands."

The myth of "you've either got it or you don't" comes, I think, from what the public sees in a performance. Just the tip of the iceberg, in terms of the tremendous amount of work needed to perform at a world-class level.

No one would find it entertaining or uplifting to listen to someone practice for hours, but, if done well, all that sweat and hard work results in a performance that is engaging. Paradoxically, with lots of deliberate practice, the performer strives for a sort of "planned spontaneity" in performance that gives the impression of freshness and life to an interpretation.  Never let them see you sweat!!

Jazz artists are especially prone to being given the "super talented" label.  What most people don't know is that they, too have put in long hours practicing scales and patterns, listening to and transcribing solos, improvising. Maybe it's the improvisatory aspect that gives people the impression they don't need to work at what they do!

I'm reading a great biography of jazz artist, Thelonious Monk right now.  I'm struck again and again by how hard he worked with his sidemen, teaching them his charts.

Here is a description of Monk's sessions with an orchestrator who was setting Monk's tunes for big band:

"The earliest meetings proved both productive and painstaking. Monk insisted that Overton transcribe his songs directly from the piano. They would sit together at the two instruments and Monk would patiently teach Overton each song, bar by bar, note by note. Monk had lead sheets, but he would not share them. . . on "Thelonious". . . they spent at least fifteen minutes on the first two bars alone, all the while explaining how the song should sound, what notes ought to be there and how the overtones are meant to suggest the key of Bb throughout the song. On "Monk's Mood". . . it took Overton -- an excellent pianist in his own right -- forty minutes to get through one chorus."

You get the picture. Now listen to this YouTube clip of Monk's group playing in Tokyo and don't tell me this hasn't been practiced and planned out to within an inch of it's life!!!

http://www.jazzonthetube.com/page/836.html