Yes, like you say its "game over". I slowed down Chopin Revolutionary Etude, now I can play it, with the accents. Now the it has strong rhythm, and meaning. Thank you.
Let's ride Lavender Lamborghini roll up in a blue bikini Bitches on the beaches looking super cute and freaky All my friends are princesses we keep it whipped and creamy Ice cream on our tongues because we like to keep it freezy Lavender Lamborghini get out on the right side Chauffeur stayed at home because my girl wanted to ride Looking lush and tasting plush I'm feeling so alive Wanna take it to the highway come on let's go for a drive
There are people that genuinely think that Marx is referring to musicians playing _faster_ than Cyborg Alberto's single-beat rendition. It's obvious in comparison how you can infer that musicians speed up based on the original whole beat tempo. Keep up the great work, Wim.
I think the argument about Marx (17:00 on) may be mistaken. Suppose that it was excessively fast 'virtuosic' tempi such as those given by Czerny that A.B. Marx was complaining about? Suppose that Marx believed that movements of a polyphonic character should be played at about half the speed that Czerny (and Moscheles) recommended? Is this probable? Well, Marx does say earlier in the chapter that you should ignore the metronome indications given by editors, and even by Beethoven himself, and judge the correct tempo for a piece of music from the Italian words Andante, Allegro etc. and from studying it carefully to determine its true character (he goes into some detail over several pages about how to do this). And elsewhere he says that polyphonic works should not be played too fast, and criticizes the excessive tempi Czerny sets in his edition of Bach's keyboard works, suggesting that these are due to Czerny's own outstanding virtuosic playing ("eignen ausgezeichneten Virtuosenspiels"). So we have an interesting contrast between people (like Czerny and maybe even Beethoven) who believe that fugues and other polyphonic pieces can benefit from rapid speeds, and people who believe they must be played quite slowly in order to hear and appreciate the different voices. That would be worth exploring further. Czerny's own School of Fugue Playing (Op. 400) might be a good starting point.
That is a great thought, I agree that we shouldn’t just assume that Marx didn’t include Czerny’s tempi in his remarks about excessive speeds, that is a faulty argument. However, could Czerny really play the piece at an unwavering tempo of 96?! Since he himself claims in his Pianoforte Schule that you ought to be able to play all the way through a piece with a steady pulse, making an effort to conceal technical difficulties. Was he a hypocrite who didn’t follow his own advice or have we somehow completely misunderstood metronome marks altogether? It seems so simple, we have a very concrete, objective, quantified way of setting tempo - one tick of the metronome per given note value with the metronome set to tick at a given rate. And yet… so many problematic tempi exist (at least from our point of view). I am not convinced the double beat theory is the answer, but I also agree that we should be asking questions and not accepting the dogmatic (yet inconsistent) view of musical academia. Beethoven meant exactly the speed he prescribed, but he was also crazy and had unrealistic expectations, and his metronome was broken, and metronome marks are just a loose suggestion anyway? Just a ballpark figure not to be taken literally despite being literally invented to show you the EXACT speed a piece is to be played at?
My question is, does "a steady pulse" mean "metronomically" to a performing musician? I am 99% sure Czerny could have played this piece in the ballpark of half=96, just as Glenn Gould does. If a ticking metronome would show up slight divergences, are these noticeable to an audience? (Ballpark is the wrong term. I meant the perceived speed of half = 96. Set a metronome to 96, listen for a few seconds, turn off the metronome and start to play Gould's recording. What does it sound like?)
@@matttondr9282 These quotes from Czerny need to be taken in context. For instance, I can give you a quote, in a passage about how to perform a short example of an Andante, that says "the prescribed time is scarcely varied by a 1/4 or 1/6 part" and infer from that that varying the time up to 25% or 16% is acceptable. This is from Part III, chap. III 'On occasional changes in the time or degree of movement'. In Para 2 of that chapter you find this: "we must consider it as a rule, always to play each piece of music, from beginning to end, without the least deviation or uncertainty, in the time prescribed by the Author, and first fixed upon by the Player". That quotation is often cited out of context, and without continuing to the end of the paragraph. "But without injury to this maxim, there occurs almost in every line some notes or passages, where a small and often almost imperceptible relaxation or acceleration of the movement is necessary, to embellish the expression and increase the interest." Note also in the 'rule' that the author prescribes a time, but the player has to fix upon a time. This makes sense only if Czerny is thinking of Italian tempo words. [[since there is some leeway for allegro, andante, etc. But if he also meant metronome indications, he might be saying that even there the performer has discretion - even though the MMs are a more precise guide than the Italian tempo words, a performer still has to decide how closely to follow them.]] Czerny was a leading virtuoso as well as a composer and teacher. If he gives an indication of half-note = 96 MM, you can be fairly sure that he could have played at that speed (in single beat, of course).
@@DismasZelenkaIf you look at the metronome marks of Czerny's "Schule der Geläufigkeit", there is absolutely no way that he used single beat interpretation. And don't forget all the other completely impossible (>20 notes/s) note velocities in single beat interpretation.
15:02 believing in single beat is believing Beethoven played it this way. Now all those stubborn and brain-washed people will vanish from the comments.
Fitting, since they call whole beaters a cult. If the religion isn't mine, it's illegitimate. Of course that whole reasoning is flawed from the very basis, since single beat requires more blind faith than whole beat.
Employer did not want me to be Kantor in Germany because i cant drive, and dont want. I passed one of the hardest exames to lose later for a car... In a country of “eco & bio ” people
All this effort to speed up Alberto's performance when you could have posted Gould. But of course, Gould is only interesting when he is playing much slower than we are used today :).
and so I did the factchecking for you - Gould starts in 94 and slows down in the difficult passages even below Lisitsa's tempo. But even if he didn't- you still would have to assume people in Marx' days played way faster than 96 (a speed which he doesn't hit at all) - that 's the whole point - a single beat reading falls flat from every corner. You might want to learn to listen to the message open mindedly first
15:23 Can I just say digital technology can be useful so we can know how ridiculous some single beat renditions sound like? It's really unfortunate both you and your wife hate driving! I'm a musician too and I love driving, even going out just for fun with no destination. Although I do hate driving at night since I'm on the autism spectrum and bright lights really bother me.
24:32 yep, still here - plus I always drive under the speed limit. My wonderfull 96 Mercedes can go much faster, but A - I never had a ticket in 15 years of driving and B - I enjoy the road and the scenery
The reason many people play faster than Metronome Marks in Whole Beat is that they don't like the way the music sounds at that tempo. If I go to a fancy restaurant and order a meal that needs more salt in my opinion, I don't suffer through the meal as the Chef intended it should taste. I just add some salt to my taste. The Chef had their chance, and then I have mine. That's just the way life works. From a historical standpoint, Tempo Reconstruction is very interesting. But from an enjoyment standpoint, not so much.
Some changes to metronome values might also be prosaic: a typo. Typographers/engravers make mistakes. :-) Bonne journée, en vous souhaitant de publier vos trouvailles géniales en des journaux musicologiques réputés.
sure, but they are easily comparable and in this case the number is absolutely normal for the movement. Before adhering the quality of an error to a data point, one must explore all possible reasons why it could be correct. Labeling it as wrong because the result doesn't match a preconditioned outcome (here: it should be playable) is not what you should do
Beethoven was a virtuoso pianist. He could play at least as brilliantly as Glenn Gould (when Gould chooses to do so). Go listen to Gould's recording of this Sonata.
@@sebastian-benedictflore Why would you need double escapement for Beethoven Sonata 6? I found one fortepiano performance, by Eric Zivian, on a copy of a 1795 Vienna instrument. Not as fast as 96, probably about 90, and rather splashy, but no problems with the repeated notes.
even if that were to be true in our modern understanding - he, nor all of his contemporaries were out of their minds asking for speed our nerve system is not designed for.
of course, but that is not the point - our aim is to reconstruct the original meaning of the metronome marks, speeds that were very important to the composers of those days. What musicians do with that knowledge is entirely up to them!
nope - she starts in 92 and slows down in the difficult passages, just like Lisitsa to low 80s - but even if she didn't- you still would have to assume people in Marx' days played way faster than 96 (a speed which she doesn't hit at all) - that 's the whole point - a single beat reading falls flat from every corner
@@AuthenticSound You don't have to assume that people in Marx's day "played way faster than 96". You only have to assume that Marx thought this movement should be played more slowly. The only reference he makes to Czerny's metronome marks is in a footnote on p.68, where he says "they ought not to be accepted without a test" - and he says the same about Beethoven's own metronome markings in the passage you show at 17:40. I take that to mean that, if you test them and feel they are too fast for the true character of the movement, you should reject them.
With all due respect to scientific evidence, you suggest that Lisitsa slows down during the set due to lack of skills (see your anecdote about students and teachers). Is there any evidence for this? Or is this just your interpretation of her kind to play this masterpiece of music?
I didn't suggest Lisitsa lacks skills, she simply cannot uphold the tempo she took at the beginning which, in this piece, is an interpretation mistake.
Still flabbergasted by the previous video, sent it to some friends and seen it three times! Is there already a possibility to subscribe for the Beethoven collection?
I've only got a negative thing to say. Why did you you use such a horrible, clunky metallic sounding 'piano' at 11.50 etc? I've played many historic pianos in my life; that example is amongst the absolute worst. Love your posts in general though.
I think the people who don't watch to the ends of these videos are the single beat fanatics, who could hardly bear to listen to a piece longer than 25 minutes.
Yes, like you say its "game over". I slowed down Chopin Revolutionary Etude, now I can play it, with the accents. Now the it has strong rhythm, and meaning. Thank you.
As I get farther and farther in life, I think more and more about de-speeding…
I'm still here, even after the plug for Patreon and the notation course which I'm looking forward to.
As a Brit, when I heard you say 120 (km/h) I was thinking in miles per hour, you wouldn't see much at that speed! 😂
Vroom, vroom! Stay safe on the road, and on the keyboards! You only get one pair of hands.
Let's ride
Lavender Lamborghini roll up in a blue bikini
Bitches on the beaches looking super cute and freaky
All my friends are princesses we keep it whipped and creamy
Ice cream on our tongues because we like to keep it freezy
Lavender Lamborghini get out on the right side
Chauffeur stayed at home because my girl wanted to ride
Looking lush and tasting plush I'm feeling so alive
Wanna take it to the highway come on let's go for a drive
The Year of Sonatas was probably life-saving for myself and others. A life-raft in a flood, so to say.
There are people that genuinely think that Marx is referring to musicians playing _faster_ than Cyborg Alberto's single-beat rendition. It's obvious in comparison how you can infer that musicians speed up based on the original whole beat tempo. Keep up the great work, Wim.
Who are those people?
No names yet?
Still waiting!
I dunno, but I think Presto should be pretty darn fast, even for Beethoven. Not insanely fast, but running or jogging...not walking tempo
I was enjoying the weekly sonatas when I was recovering from various back surgeries...
I think the argument about Marx (17:00 on) may be mistaken. Suppose that it was excessively fast 'virtuosic' tempi such as those given by Czerny that A.B. Marx was complaining about? Suppose that Marx believed that movements of a polyphonic character should be played at about half the speed that Czerny (and Moscheles) recommended? Is this probable?
Well, Marx does say earlier in the chapter that you should ignore the metronome indications given by editors, and even by Beethoven himself, and judge the correct tempo for a piece of music from the Italian words Andante, Allegro etc. and from studying it carefully to determine its true character (he goes into some detail over several pages about how to do this).
And elsewhere he says that polyphonic works should not be played too fast, and criticizes the excessive tempi Czerny sets in his edition of Bach's keyboard works, suggesting that these are due to Czerny's own outstanding virtuosic playing ("eignen ausgezeichneten Virtuosenspiels").
So we have an interesting contrast between people (like Czerny and maybe even Beethoven) who believe that fugues and other polyphonic pieces can benefit from rapid speeds, and people who believe they must be played quite slowly in order to hear and appreciate the different voices. That would be worth exploring further. Czerny's own School of Fugue Playing (Op. 400) might be a good starting point.
That is a great thought, I agree that we shouldn’t just assume that Marx didn’t include Czerny’s tempi in his remarks about excessive speeds, that is a faulty argument. However, could Czerny really play the piece at an unwavering tempo of 96?! Since he himself claims in his Pianoforte Schule that you ought to be able to play all the way through a piece with a steady pulse, making an effort to conceal technical difficulties. Was he a hypocrite who didn’t follow his own advice or have we somehow completely misunderstood metronome marks altogether?
It seems so simple, we have a very concrete, objective, quantified way of setting tempo - one tick of the metronome per given note value with the metronome set to tick at a given rate. And yet… so many problematic tempi exist (at least from our point of view).
I am not convinced the double beat theory is the answer, but I also agree that we should be asking questions and not accepting the dogmatic (yet inconsistent) view of musical academia. Beethoven meant exactly the speed he prescribed, but he was also crazy and had unrealistic expectations, and his metronome was broken, and metronome marks are just a loose suggestion anyway? Just a ballpark figure not to be taken literally despite being literally invented to show you the EXACT speed a piece is to be played at?
My question is, does "a steady pulse" mean "metronomically" to a performing musician? I am 99% sure Czerny could have played this piece in the ballpark of half=96, just as Glenn Gould does. If a ticking metronome would show up slight divergences, are these noticeable to an audience? (Ballpark is the wrong term. I meant the perceived speed of half = 96. Set a metronome to 96, listen for a few seconds, turn off the metronome and start to play Gould's recording. What does it sound like?)
@@matttondr9282 These quotes from Czerny need to be taken in context. For instance, I can give you a quote, in a passage about how to perform a short example of an Andante, that says "the prescribed time is scarcely varied by a 1/4 or 1/6 part" and infer from that that varying the time up to 25% or 16% is acceptable. This is from Part III, chap. III 'On occasional changes in the time or degree of movement'. In Para 2 of that chapter you find this: "we must consider it as a rule, always to play each piece of music, from beginning to end, without the least deviation or uncertainty, in the time prescribed by the Author, and first fixed upon by the Player". That quotation is often cited out of context, and without continuing to the end of the paragraph. "But without injury to this maxim, there occurs almost in every line some notes or passages, where a small and often almost imperceptible relaxation or acceleration of the movement is necessary, to embellish the expression and increase the interest."
Note also in the 'rule' that the author prescribes a time, but the player has to fix upon a time. This makes sense only if Czerny is thinking of Italian tempo words. [[since there is some leeway for allegro, andante, etc. But if he also meant metronome indications, he might be saying that even there the performer has discretion - even though the MMs are a more precise guide than the Italian tempo words, a performer still has to decide how closely to follow them.]]
Czerny was a leading virtuoso as well as a composer and teacher. If he gives an indication of half-note = 96 MM, you can be fairly sure that he could have played at that speed (in single beat, of course).
@@DismasZelenkaIf you look at the metronome marks of Czerny's "Schule der Geläufigkeit", there is absolutely no way that he used single beat interpretation. And don't forget all the other completely impossible (>20 notes/s) note velocities in single beat interpretation.
Your interpretation of this sonata on clavichord in the Cornell university is still one of my favourite recordings on the channel
15:02 believing in single beat is believing Beethoven played it this way.
Now all those stubborn and brain-washed people will vanish from the comments.
I think that Glenn Gould's recording may be something like how Beethoven and Czerny would have played.
Single beat is a religion
But of the Kool-Aid type,
Fitting, since they call whole beaters a cult. If the religion isn't mine, it's illegitimate. Of course that whole reasoning is flawed from the very basis, since single beat requires more blind faith than whole beat.
We'll, if that is so, at least 'single-beaters' can point to texts that unambiguously support their beliefs, unlike whole beat devotees.
Employer did not want me to be Kantor in Germany because i cant drive, and dont want. I passed one of the hardest exames to lose later for a car... In a country of “eco & bio ” people
All this effort to speed up Alberto's performance when you could have posted Gould. But of course, Gould is only interesting when he is playing much slower than we are used today :).
That is an amazing Gould performance - perfect clarity, and spot on 96, as far as I could judge.
yes, and we know of your 'accurate' fact checking capacities - easy to fill comment boxes with generic statements
and so I did the factchecking for you - Gould starts in 94 and slows down in the difficult passages even below Lisitsa's tempo. But even if he didn't- you still would have to assume people in Marx' days played way faster than 96 (a speed which he doesn't hit at all) - that 's the whole point - a single beat reading falls flat from every corner. You might want to learn to listen to the message open mindedly first
Funny, I cannot stand cars either, both driving them and tolerating them when I'm walking.
Convincing
15:23 Can I just say digital technology can be useful so we can know how ridiculous some single beat renditions sound like?
It's really unfortunate both you and your wife hate driving! I'm a musician too and I love driving, even going out just for fun with no destination. Although I do hate driving at night since I'm on the autism spectrum and bright lights really bother me.
24:32 yep, still here - plus I always drive under the speed limit. My wonderfull 96 Mercedes can go much faster, but A - I never had a ticket in 15 years of driving and B - I enjoy the road and the scenery
The reason many people play faster than Metronome Marks in Whole Beat is that they don't like the way the music sounds at that tempo.
If I go to a fancy restaurant and order a meal that needs more salt in my opinion, I don't suffer through the meal as the Chef intended it should taste. I just add some salt to my taste. The Chef had their chance, and then I have mine. That's just the way life works.
From a historical standpoint, Tempo Reconstruction is very interesting. But from an enjoyment standpoint, not so much.
Are you telling me that Whole-beat is so well known, that "people" have tried it out and decided against it?
I don't believe it.
@@surgeeo1406 By subconscious default, yes. Wim is not tilting at windmills regarding the controversy of historical Metronome Marks.
Now remove the salt when it's too salty...
Some changes to metronome values might also be prosaic: a typo. Typographers/engravers make mistakes. :-) Bonne journée, en vous souhaitant de publier vos trouvailles géniales en des journaux musicologiques réputés.
sure, but they are easily comparable and in this case the number is absolutely normal for the movement. Before adhering the quality of an error to a data point, one must explore all possible reasons why it could be correct. Labeling it as wrong because the result doesn't match a preconditioned outcome (here: it should be playable) is not what you should do
This Chanel = Giga Chad 🗿
Best and obvius arguments in all comunity of musicology 🎉❤
You have no idea...
Beethoven was a great genius, dear Wim. He had premonitions of high-speed rail.
Beethoven was a virtuoso pianist. He could play at least as brilliantly as Glenn Gould (when Gould chooses to do so). Go listen to Gould's recording of this Sonata.
@@DismasZelenka I suppose you listened to Beethoven yourself in order to compare! I wish I could be half as lucky.
@@DismasZelenka How lucky, too, for Beethoven to have had Steinway's double-escapement action in 1796!
@@sebastian-benedictflore Why would you need double escapement for Beethoven Sonata 6? I found one fortepiano performance, by Eric Zivian, on a copy of a 1795 Vienna instrument. Not as fast as 96, probably about 90, and rather splashy, but no problems with the repeated notes.
even if that were to be true in our modern understanding - he, nor all of his contemporaries were out of their minds asking for speed our nerve system is not designed for.
why not just have fun playing, just listen / play the speeds you like
of course, but that is not the point - our aim is to reconstruct the original meaning of the metronome marks, speeds that were very important to the composers of those days. What musicians do with that knowledge is entirely up to them!
I think this version from HJ Lim (ruclips.net/video/m96pysNw94M/видео.htmlsi=SYxZGhvnxFrBcT31) is pretty close to 96
nope - she starts in 92 and slows down in the difficult passages, just like Lisitsa to low 80s - but even if she didn't- you still would have to assume people in Marx' days played way faster than 96 (a speed which she doesn't hit at all) - that 's the whole point - a single beat reading falls flat from every corner
@@AuthenticSound You don't have to assume that people in Marx's day "played way faster than 96". You only have to assume that Marx thought this movement should be played more slowly. The only reference he makes to Czerny's metronome marks is in a footnote on p.68, where he says "they ought not to be accepted without a test" - and he says the same about Beethoven's own metronome markings in the passage you show at 17:40. I take that to mean that, if you test them and feel they are too fast for the true character of the movement, you should reject them.
With all due respect to scientific evidence, you suggest that Lisitsa slows down during the set due to lack of skills (see your anecdote about students and teachers). Is there any evidence for this? Or is this just your interpretation of her kind to play this masterpiece of music?
The piece doesn't require any slowing down.
I didn't suggest Lisitsa lacks skills, she simply cannot uphold the tempo she took at the beginning which, in this piece, is an interpretation mistake.
@@petertyrrell3391 I am a big fan of stable tempos. But thats not my question here...
Those fast examples are uvpleasant...not much different from a 3 year old banging away....
Have you heard Glenn Gould play this? Is that how a three-year old would bang away?
"Despeed" decelerate in English Wim.
Still flabbergasted by the previous video, sent it to some friends and seen it three times! Is there already a possibility to subscribe for the Beethoven collection?
we plan the new Kickstarter in October, box 1 is already available, best to add your name to our email list, thanks!
First1!!!!!
I've only got a negative thing to say. Why did you you use such a horrible, clunky metallic sounding 'piano' at 11.50 etc? I've played many historic pianos in my life; that example is amongst the absolute worst. Love your posts in general though.
24:35 I am still here.
I think the people who don't watch to the ends of these videos are the single beat fanatics, who could hardly bear to listen to a piece longer than 25 minutes.
25:33 still here 👍