Hey Wim, i have recently been given an opportunity to audition for the conservatory here in Birmingham, U.K., for the harpsichord. I plan to play Mozart's Sonata KV 284 and as a clavichord player myself, your interpretation from a few years ago has been very valuable to me. You have helped me to realise that breakneck tempi aren't something i must aspire to, and as a fifteen year old i believe that your message found me before modern practice influenced me to think that way. From the bottom of my heart thank you very much for what you do, and i owe a lot to you in my musical journey. Also, 50:00 : Im still here :)
50:00 I’m still here! And I am fascinated that I have been following your channel now for a while to have seen you mention rapidly the surprise at the end in another video but not like it was the main point of that video. This video details what I consider will be an eye opening story for many people, but I won’t write any spoilers. If we pay attention, your logic supports the theory up to the details!
A question or thought. I saw an interview of Seymour Bernstein on Chopin who said several interesting things. One is that Chopin's hands were not large. Bernstein talked about seeing a casting made of one of Chopin's hands and thought it was remarkable in not being large. He commented also that Chopin was fully aware of the nature of the human hand and how it applied to the keyboard. BUT, and here's my question or thought: Bernstein said that the size of Chopin's keyboard Octave was the same size of the modern keyboard Seventh. This was a Tonebase interview with Ben Laude. Ben then said something like, "Wow. That would make playing Chopin's Etudes easier." So my question is whether the width-size of Chopin's piano keyboard somehow made Etudes on more modern piano's all the more difficult such that the metronome markings needed to be made slower. I remember Tiffany Poon being allowed to visit Robert Schuman's home in Germany and she got to play and talk about Robert's piano. She noted that the white keys on his piano were shorter than that of a modern piano. She first found it weird but then said she rather liked the shorter length of the white keys. She said it removed some of the inefficiencies she had when here hands would come to the end of the key and then had to move in to hit black keys. She ended by saying she liked the idea of Robert's piano keys being shorter and she could play faster. I'm no piano historian nor do I play one TV. But what do we know of the width size of Chopin's piano keys? Thanks.
Well, I wonder why nobody proved this hypothesis beyond a reasonable doubt, because there're quite a lot of restored Chopin-era pianos, and even Chopin's own 1831 Pleyel exists in a private collection and has been used in a recording called "Genuine Chopin" by Janusz Olejniczak.
@ds61821 hi David, I have a restored Erard from 1864 - exactly the same model owned by Liszt. The white keys are a little shorter but the width is the same so there’s no stretch advantage. I don’t find the action to be remarkably lighter than modern pianos either but it’s definitely a different tone world and I’ve been able to record some quite virtuosic music on it with interesting results.
@@artemasgray I don't know of course about their various pianos. I only know what Seymour Bernstein said about Chopin's piano.This was news also to Ben Laude.
@@jonathanbradley8698 Tiffany Poon only mentioned Schumann's piano had white keys that were shorter. She mentioned nothing about the width of the white keys. I don't remember her saying anything about the touch of the his piano.
@@artemasgray Chopin owned both a Pleyel and an Erard. French octave Compass was 6.25 inch also found on some of the forte pianos 158.75 mmA Hass Harpsichord and an untouched Ruckers had 6 5/8 inches (6.625) or 168.275. Chopin’s first concert was 1830 and his last concert 1848 at the Salles Pleyel. Michel Boegner recorded on 1836. The earliest dates from circa 1840 is 164 mm or 6.45 inches for an upright (same for a Pleyel and Company grand 1842). My U1 Yamaha is 167 mm or 6.574 inches. A Fritz Grand is 160 mm circa 1815 about 6.3 inches Graf 1826 & 1830 also 160 mm, a Jakesch early 1830’s 159 mm or 6.2598 inches all three grand pianos. An Erard square piano 1866 is 185(?)mm (typo) , most likely 165 mm, but a 1901 Erard Freres square measures 160 mm By comparison Yamaha has 167 mm 6.5748 inches. 1787 Stuart 162 mm, Walter & Sohn 153 mm? Square 6 inches. 1769 Zumpe & Buntebart 162 mm Square 1787 & 1802 Stodart 162 mm Grand & 1807 Square 161 mm Again by comparison Yamaha is 167 mm at a tad over 6 1/2 inches. Information from piano-tuners dot org. John Shores’ Pitch folk was a necessity of invention, one source lists the Royal trumpeter split his lip consequently became lutenist. a=423.5 as one survives. Silbermann Dresden Organ at a=415 the only references to that pitch. Handel’s a=422.5 Stines lists Mozart at a=421. Stein’s 1780 a=422.6 Broadwood’s London 1800 a C fork 505.7 circa half a semitone lower than the c for a=440 Vienna Opera pitch 1834 a=436.5 Wolfed a=443 1835 Pleyels 1836 a=446 Mr Hipkins Piano tuner mean tone a=433.5 Equal temperament a=436 Broadwood medium pitch 1849-1854 a=445.9 London Cramer London (piano) a=448.9 1860 Collard standard pitch 1877 Standardization wasn’t a rule.
The switch from acoustical to electrical recording was made in June 1925 by HMV and Columbia, both companies claimed to have been first (only four days between them). The famous Backhaus integral version of Chopins op. 10 and 25 was an electrical recording (nothing to do with a piano-roll). This means that he did play exactly that tempo, with these mistakes in the studio. Editing as we know it (which can be used to cut out mistakes) became only available much later with the advent of tape recording. Like it or not, what you hear is what he played.
And to make things even more impressive: in order to make up for the long op. 10 nr. 3 on the B-side, Backhaus had to put three etudes on the A, without editing or pasting. So he played op. 10 nr. 1, nr. 7 and then this nr. 2, all in one take. All or nothing. Kudos.
This is why I stopped focusing on "speed playing." It sounds mechanical and robotic. It becomes about the performer's abilities, not the music itself. I can download a MIDI file and play it at any speed, but the only reason I'd play it fast is to imagine a human performing it. There's no point in being impressed by a computer playing fast. I encourage people to download MIDI files, set their own tempo, and try to focus on the music itself, separate from the performer.
@@DismasZelenka Exactly, their music was filtered through charlatans. Try creating a RUclips channel where you play "good" and see how many views or concert attendees you attract!
@@DismasZelenkaAbsolutely, I love those artists and agree with your assessment. However, until we know how the composers truly intended their music to be performed, it's hard to say for sure. If Wim is incorrect, then those artists are falling woefully short(still impressive). But if you're wrong, then they're truly exceptional.
@@DismasZelenkaI doubt modern performance practices will disappear. Wim's ideas will likely benefit beginners and amateurs the most, while professionals will continue to push boundaries and strive to outperform each other.
Hey Wim, I'm fascinated by the number of RUclips channels and videos dedicated to playing slowed-down classical music. Their popularity suggests an untapped desire for this kind of content. A quick search will reveal many.
I disagree with the idea that Chopin's Etudes weren't considered to be very hard in the 19th century. Lemoine's book 'Les tablettes du pianiste' places them at the highest level of difficulty. The same thing can be said about Plaidy and Von Bullow's progressive list of studies written in their pedagogical works/editions. Obviously, etudes by Liszt or Alkan were regarded as harder.
i have to mention in the préface of the Henle editions of the scherzi the comments of Chopin's pupil Wilhelm von Lenz who is talking about the third scherzo and the fact that Chopin has to arpeggiate the chord in the bass in the 6th measure "on his narrow-keyed Pleyel piano with a light touch "...
I was there at 49:56 and the various different editions of this particular etude paint quite the interesting picture. Thank you for presenting it! My most intrusive thought throughout the video came about when you showed the score for the first etude however. The first two bars show an accent on the 16th notes that mark the start of every quarter notes, making me think how difficult it would be for me to achieve the required clarity in articulation even in whole beat (I'm not a great pianist), so I can't imagine how it's possible to do that at single beat speeds even though the best pianists likely can pull it off. This brings me to my issue, these accents are only marked in the first two bars: did Chopin mean that the arpeggios throughout the rest of the etude be played with an even hand, or did he intend the player to continue the accentuation pattern established at the start? Naturally, the above question can be extended to any etude that gives a specific accentuation and/or pedalling pattern at the start and drops it after a few bars.
18:30 I also want to take a moment to remind ourselves that conservatoires then were different from how many a run now. Where i live, you go to conservatoire at 18 or older, minimum 17. Any younger are truly exceptional cases, anomalous. It's different from country to country but in Liszt's day, I think I'm correct in saying that the exceptional cases would be in the single-digit ages. Many if not most entered as young teens. If the above is correct, and correct me if I'm wrong, does this mean that a good first year student would be a 14 year old capable of sight-reading Liszt's Beethoven symphony transcriptions?
As a student of literature and literary criticism I urge everyone to read an essay by W.K. Wimsatt called "The Intentional Fallacy" where the whole question of knowing what writers and composers actually intended--before we even get to the matter of reproducing those "intentions". The fact of interpretation is omnipresent.
Quarter note is 176?? And then 16th notes??? I put the first two bars into MuseScore, and it sounds a tad faster than Backaus, but not by much. That is so far above where I can play it that I must regard it as some kind of Olympic feat to play that fast. Yeah, 49:58 and I'm still listening. That metronome marking is almost the maximum for a mechanical metronome.
I think Wim is right regarding the understanding of Metronome Marks, and the Historical Reconstruction of what music sounded like in a particular time period as it was written is very valuable work. When it comes to "What the Composer intended," is an interesting question, and perhaps needs a more nuanced answer to account for different time periods. Did the Composer want the audience to "hear" the music at their specified tempo, or did they want the listener to "experience" the music and it's emotional impact, even if that required a different tempo? Taking into consideration how even the same person experiences the very same thing differently depending on the environment they have become accustomed to, we can see how a different tempo to what was indicated might actually preserve the "musical experience," the spirit of the music the Composer intended. A person who grew up on a farm or rural area then moved to a big city experiences the same things quite differently, and vice-versa. The impact of our psychology, as affected by our environment, has a big impact on our experiences in life, including music. What would a Composer answer if asked to choose whether they wanted their music strictly played at their indicated tempo, even though it didn't deliver the "experience" they intended to the audience, or if they would choose that their music be played so it delivered the musical "experience" they intended to that audience, even though that was at a different tempo? History has provided ample evidence of a preference in changes to indicated Tempi. There are also historical, and current "loudness" wars where bigger is better, evidenced in the growth in the size of symphony orchestras, and the increase in the volume that can be produced in building louder acoustic instruments, and in electrified instruments and sound amplification. For better or worse, there is a general momentum that: Faster is better, louder is better, and bigger is better.
Virtuosity wasn’t always and only judged by speed yardstick…tonal shading, articulation, cantabile (singing lines), bon gout are the measure of the day from 18th century C P E Bach to Lisztomania to the latter part of the 19th when speed and “playing like a charlatan (Liszt’s comment)” became the fashion.
Wagner heard Beethoven’s Symphony No 7 in Leipzig Jan 1828 and March of the same year the 9th at the Gewandhaus…Wagner wrote a Piano transcription of the 9th.
Yeah, I listened to the whole thing. I can't help myself, this is so interesting! Thank you. I can't wait till orchestra conductors start coming around to your views and perform Beethoven et al closer to the original tempos. In the mean time, every once in a while an orchestra will auction off a conducting spot for charity: maybe we should all chip in to try to hijack one of those for you?!
Now i understand Vitaly Margulis' recording of this étude... Maybe he knew this other manuscript. For those who don't know it, he makes the inner voice to sing has being the main voice. Of course he does it with a pedal effect... And is very free in tempo. ruclips.net/video/rmayKaD52LU/видео.html In the last Chopin competiton i heard some pianists going above single beat... Not that i care... It should sound like music and it always ends up sounding like a machine... But there were good interpretations also (in single beat of course). I've watched all the video. Thanks for the video and editing.
I've been listening to your recordings of the 9 Beethoven symphonies and other performances in your channel. For pieces that I haven't heard before they didn't sound too slow. For those that I knew, I had to listen to them a few times to get used to the speed, but they worked, even for the slowest of the movements. It seems that it's getting easier and easier to adjust, which is cool. About the 9 symphonies, some movements changed character drastically, for example: 3rd movement of the 3rd symphony and the 3rd and 4th movement of the 7th symphony. The results are very nice and even better in WBMP in my opinion. For some reason, I also like the character of the 3rd symphony in SB. For the movements in the 7th symphony, SB doesn't work at all for me. Maybe some people say that WBMP doesn't work musically because they expect the same character from SB, which of course won't be the case.
The evidence that Schumann struggled with strengthening his fourth and fifth fingers is very well known. But did it have anything to do with a Chopin Etude? I don’t know
Place a bullet at the end of a piece of string with a length of 2,225,987 metres, and when - in WBMP - this pendulum returns, I shall be at this point in the video. 😂
I compose rock music in two ways: With a drum machine/metronome: I establish the tempo first (slow, moderate, or fast), and the drum machine/metronome keeps me in time while I play. Freestyle: I play the music at my own natural pace, then I adjust the metronome to match the tempo I've created. Having two methods might create confusion for beginners and amateurs who are used to hearing beats in a specific tempo. With a single beat Maelzel metronome, 100 quarter notes per minute sounds the same as 100 half-notes per minute. The composer indicates how many beats to play, regardless of the metronome's speed. You determine the audible tempo, not the metronome setting. Confusing to beginners? MuseScore allows you to set any tempo you desire, while a mechanical metronome has a physical limit, usually around 208 beats per minute. (Beethoven's metronome only went up to 160!) If I want to HEAR 500 quarter notes per second in MuseScore, I can.
Repetition of the mechanisms allow 20+ cycles per second, for a reason. And this achievement is repeated over years with physical wear. Why go through the engineering?
I feel like Chopin is the one of the best arguments for the whole beat, because in the whole beat the études sound surprisingly beautiful, but in the single beat they're not only unplayable, they're unlistenable, and it's a great injustice to a great composer.
Hey Wim, i have recently been given an opportunity to audition for the conservatory here in Birmingham, U.K., for the harpsichord. I plan to play Mozart's Sonata KV 284 and as a clavichord player myself, your interpretation from a few years ago has been very valuable to me. You have helped me to realise that breakneck tempi aren't something i must aspire to, and as a fifteen year old i believe that your message found me before modern practice influenced me to think that way. From the bottom of my heart thank you very much for what you do, and i owe a lot to you in my musical journey.
Also, 50:00 : Im still here :)
50:00 I’m still here! And I am fascinated that I have been following your channel now for a while to have seen you mention rapidly the surprise at the end in another video but not like it was the main point of that video. This video details what I consider will be an eye opening story for many people, but I won’t write any spoilers. If we pay attention, your logic supports the theory up to the details!
A question or thought. I saw an interview of Seymour Bernstein on Chopin who said several interesting things. One is that Chopin's hands were not large. Bernstein talked about seeing a casting made of one of Chopin's hands and thought it was remarkable in not being large. He commented also that Chopin was fully aware of the nature of the human hand and how it applied to the keyboard. BUT, and here's my question or thought: Bernstein said that the size of Chopin's keyboard Octave was the same size of the modern keyboard Seventh. This was a Tonebase interview with Ben Laude. Ben then said something like, "Wow. That would make playing Chopin's Etudes easier." So my question is whether the width-size of Chopin's piano keyboard somehow made Etudes on more modern piano's all the more difficult such that the metronome markings needed to be made slower. I remember Tiffany Poon being allowed to visit Robert Schuman's home in Germany and she got to play and talk about Robert's piano. She noted that the white keys on his piano were shorter than that of a modern piano. She first found it weird but then said she rather liked the shorter length of the white keys. She said it removed some of the inefficiencies she had when here hands would come to the end of the key and then had to move in to hit black keys. She ended by saying she liked the idea of Robert's piano keys being shorter and she could play faster. I'm no piano historian nor do I play one TV. But what do we know of the width size of Chopin's piano keys? Thanks.
Well, I wonder why nobody proved this hypothesis beyond a reasonable doubt, because there're quite a lot of restored Chopin-era pianos, and even Chopin's own 1831 Pleyel exists in a private collection and has been used in a recording called "Genuine Chopin" by Janusz Olejniczak.
@ds61821 hi David, I have a restored Erard from 1864 - exactly the same model owned by Liszt. The white keys are a little shorter but the width is the same so there’s no stretch advantage. I don’t find the action to be remarkably lighter than modern pianos either but it’s definitely a different tone world and I’ve been able to record some quite virtuosic music on it with interesting results.
@@artemasgray I don't know of course about their various pianos. I only know what Seymour Bernstein said about Chopin's piano.This was news also to Ben Laude.
@@jonathanbradley8698 Tiffany Poon only mentioned Schumann's piano had white keys that were shorter. She mentioned nothing about the width of the white keys. I don't remember her saying anything about the touch of the his piano.
@@artemasgray Chopin owned both a Pleyel and an Erard. French octave Compass was 6.25 inch also found on some of the forte pianos 158.75 mmA Hass Harpsichord and an untouched Ruckers had 6 5/8 inches (6.625) or 168.275.
Chopin’s first concert was 1830 and his last concert 1848 at the Salles Pleyel. Michel Boegner recorded on 1836. The earliest dates from circa 1840 is 164 mm or 6.45 inches for an upright (same for a Pleyel and Company grand 1842).
My U1 Yamaha is 167 mm or 6.574 inches.
A Fritz Grand is 160 mm circa 1815 about 6.3 inches
Graf 1826 & 1830 also 160 mm, a Jakesch early 1830’s 159 mm or 6.2598 inches all three grand pianos.
An Erard square piano 1866 is 185(?)mm (typo) , most likely 165 mm, but a 1901 Erard Freres square measures 160 mm
By comparison Yamaha has 167 mm 6.5748 inches.
1787 Stuart 162 mm,
Walter & Sohn 153 mm? Square 6 inches.
1769 Zumpe & Buntebart 162 mm Square
1787 & 1802 Stodart 162 mm Grand & 1807 Square 161 mm
Again by comparison Yamaha is 167 mm at a tad over 6 1/2 inches.
Information from piano-tuners dot org.
John Shores’ Pitch folk was a necessity of invention, one source lists the Royal trumpeter split his lip consequently became lutenist. a=423.5 as one survives.
Silbermann Dresden Organ at a=415 the only references to that pitch.
Handel’s a=422.5
Stines lists Mozart at a=421.
Stein’s 1780 a=422.6
Broadwood’s London 1800 a C fork 505.7 circa half a semitone lower than the c for a=440
Vienna Opera pitch 1834 a=436.5
Wolfed a=443 1835
Pleyels 1836 a=446
Mr Hipkins Piano tuner mean tone a=433.5 Equal temperament a=436
Broadwood medium pitch 1849-1854 a=445.9 London
Cramer London (piano) a=448.9 1860
Collard standard pitch 1877
Standardization wasn’t a rule.
Cole'Anderson's channel is best ! Indeed ! It doesn't get a hundredth of the audience he deserves !
totally agree!
The switch from acoustical to electrical recording was made in June 1925 by HMV and Columbia, both companies claimed to have been first (only four days between them). The famous Backhaus integral version of Chopins op. 10 and 25 was an electrical recording (nothing to do with a piano-roll). This means that he did play exactly that tempo, with these mistakes in the studio.
Editing as we know it (which can be used to cut out mistakes) became only available much later with the advent of tape recording.
Like it or not, what you hear is what he played.
And to make things even more impressive: in order to make up for the long op. 10 nr. 3 on the B-side, Backhaus had to put three etudes on the A, without editing or pasting. So he played op. 10 nr. 1, nr. 7 and then this nr. 2, all in one take. All or nothing. Kudos.
This is why I stopped focusing on "speed playing." It sounds mechanical and robotic. It becomes about the performer's abilities, not the music itself. I can download a MIDI file and play it at any speed, but the only reason I'd play it fast is to imagine a human performing it. There's no point in being impressed by a computer playing fast. I encourage people to download MIDI files, set their own tempo, and try to focus on the music itself, separate from the performer.
@@DismasZelenka Exactly, their music was filtered through charlatans. Try creating a RUclips channel where you play "good" and see how many views or concert attendees you attract!
@@DismasZelenkaAbsolutely, I love those artists and agree with your assessment. However, until we know how the composers truly intended their music to be performed, it's hard to say for sure. If Wim is incorrect, then those artists are falling woefully short(still impressive). But if you're wrong, then they're truly exceptional.
@@DismasZelenkaI doubt modern performance practices will disappear. Wim's ideas will likely benefit beginners and amateurs the most, while professionals will continue to push boundaries and strive to outperform each other.
Hey Wim, I'm fascinated by the number of RUclips channels and videos dedicated to playing slowed-down classical music. Their popularity suggests an untapped desire for this kind of content. A quick search will reveal many.
Perhaps not slowed-down but just slower tempi
I believe you are right
I disagree with the idea that Chopin's Etudes weren't considered to be very hard in the 19th century. Lemoine's book 'Les tablettes du pianiste' places them at the highest level of difficulty. The same thing can be said about Plaidy and Von Bullow's progressive list of studies written in their pedagogical works/editions. Obviously, etudes by Liszt or Alkan were regarded as harder.
The time flew by! Really interesting stuff Meneer Winters! :) 50:09 still here heh
Ready to learn something new!
i have to mention in the préface of the Henle editions of the scherzi the comments of Chopin's pupil Wilhelm von Lenz who is talking about the third scherzo and the fact that Chopin has to arpeggiate the chord in the bass in the 6th measure "on his narrow-keyed Pleyel piano with a light touch "...
I was there at 49:56 and the various different editions of this particular etude paint quite the interesting picture. Thank you for presenting it!
My most intrusive thought throughout the video came about when you showed the score for the first etude however. The first two bars show an accent on the 16th notes that mark the start of every quarter notes, making me think how difficult it would be for me to achieve the required clarity in articulation even in whole beat (I'm not a great pianist), so I can't imagine how it's possible to do that at single beat speeds even though the best pianists likely can pull it off. This brings me to my issue, these accents are only marked in the first two bars: did Chopin mean that the arpeggios throughout the rest of the etude be played with an even hand, or did he intend the player to continue the accentuation pattern established at the start?
Naturally, the above question can be extended to any etude that gives a specific accentuation and/or pedalling pattern at the start and drops it after a few bars.
18:30 I also want to take a moment to remind ourselves that conservatoires then were different from how many a run now. Where i live, you go to conservatoire at 18 or older, minimum 17. Any younger are truly exceptional cases, anomalous. It's different from country to country but in Liszt's day, I think I'm correct in saying that the exceptional cases would be in the single-digit ages. Many if not most entered as young teens.
If the above is correct, and correct me if I'm wrong, does this mean that a good first year student would be a 14 year old capable of sight-reading Liszt's Beethoven symphony transcriptions?
in case they would have been 14, than yes
As a student of literature and literary criticism I urge everyone to read an essay by W.K. Wimsatt called "The Intentional Fallacy" where the whole question of knowing what writers and composers actually intended--before we even get to the matter of reproducing those "intentions". The fact of interpretation is omnipresent.
I listened to the end! Salieri variations? I am going to check that out now.
Quarter note is 176?? And then 16th notes??? I put the first two bars into MuseScore, and it sounds a tad faster than Backaus, but not by much. That is so far above where I can play it that I must regard it as some kind of Olympic feat to play that fast. Yeah, 49:58 and I'm still listening. That metronome marking is almost the maximum for a mechanical metronome.
52 min?
26 min in single beat
'Terra-forming' in the realm of music doles out a greeting with a peak at some of Chopin's manuscripts. Still here, and cheers
I think Wim is right regarding the understanding of Metronome Marks, and the Historical Reconstruction of what music sounded like in a particular time period as it was written is very valuable work. When it comes to "What the Composer intended," is an interesting question, and perhaps needs a more nuanced answer to account for different time periods. Did the Composer want the audience to "hear" the music at their specified tempo, or did they want the listener to "experience" the music and it's emotional impact, even if that required a different tempo? Taking into consideration how even the same person experiences the very same thing differently depending on the environment they have become accustomed to, we can see how a different tempo to what was indicated might actually preserve the "musical experience," the spirit of the music the Composer intended.
A person who grew up on a farm or rural area then moved to a big city experiences the same things quite differently, and vice-versa. The impact of our psychology, as affected by our environment, has a big impact on our experiences in life, including music. What would a Composer answer if asked to choose whether they wanted their music strictly played at their indicated tempo, even though it didn't deliver the "experience" they intended to the audience, or if they would choose that their music be played so it delivered the musical "experience" they intended to that audience, even though that was at a different tempo?
History has provided ample evidence of a preference in changes to indicated Tempi. There are also historical, and current "loudness" wars where bigger is better, evidenced in the growth in the size of symphony orchestras, and the increase in the volume that can be produced in building louder acoustic instruments, and in electrified instruments and sound amplification. For better or worse, there is a general momentum that: Faster is better, louder is better, and bigger is better.
Virtuosity wasn’t always and only judged by speed yardstick…tonal shading, articulation, cantabile (singing lines), bon gout are the measure of the day from 18th century C P E Bach to Lisztomania to the latter part of the 19th when speed and “playing like a charlatan (Liszt’s comment)” became the fashion.
Hummel gave MM for later Mozart Symphonies and chamber works, and considered fast…
Wagner heard Beethoven’s Symphony No 7 in Leipzig Jan 1828 and March of the same year the 9th at the Gewandhaus…Wagner wrote a Piano transcription of the 9th.
Yeah, I listened to the whole thing. I can't help myself, this is so interesting! Thank you.
I can't wait till orchestra conductors start coming around to your views and perform Beethoven et al closer to the original tempos. In the mean time, every once in a while an orchestra will auction off a conducting spot for charity: maybe we should all chip in to try to hijack one of those for you?!
Now i understand Vitaly Margulis' recording of this étude... Maybe he knew this other manuscript. For those who don't know it, he makes the inner voice to sing has being the main voice. Of course he does it with a pedal effect... And is very free in tempo.
ruclips.net/video/rmayKaD52LU/видео.html
In the last Chopin competiton i heard some pianists going above single beat... Not that i care... It should sound like music and it always ends up sounding like a machine... But there were good interpretations also (in single beat of course).
I've watched all the video. Thanks for the video and editing.
I've been listening to your recordings of the 9 Beethoven symphonies and other performances in your channel. For pieces that I haven't heard before they didn't sound too slow. For those that I knew, I had to listen to them a few times to get used to the speed, but they worked, even for the slowest of the movements. It seems that it's getting easier and easier to adjust, which is cool.
About the 9 symphonies, some movements changed character drastically, for example: 3rd movement of the 3rd symphony and the 3rd and 4th movement of the 7th symphony. The results are very nice and even better in WBMP in my opinion. For some reason, I also like the character of the 3rd symphony in SB. For the movements in the 7th symphony, SB doesn't work at all for me.
Maybe some people say that WBMP doesn't work musically because they expect the same character from SB, which of course won't be the case.
thanks for sharing!
Timestamp 50:00 Wim, I am here!
The evidence that Schumann struggled with strengthening his fourth and fifth fingers is very well known. But did it have anything to do with a Chopin Etude? I don’t know
Place a bullet at the end of a piece of string with a length of 2,225,987 metres, and when - in WBMP - this pendulum returns, I shall be at this point in the video. 😂
Ok but like at what tempo should I Play the first mvmt of the 2nd Sonata? I think I have been asking you this question for 10 years ,😆😝😝😝
I will still suggest that “cycle-beat” is somewhat less confusing than “single beat”
And twice in a cycle would be a Demi-cycle or Hemi-cycle beat (one beat per half cycle). Nomenclature matters!
It is absolutely amazing that a late pupil of Liszt was still around in 1914, just like a student of Ravel was around and recording in the late 1990s
I compose rock music in two ways:
With a drum machine/metronome: I establish the tempo first (slow, moderate, or fast), and the drum machine/metronome keeps me in time while I play.
Freestyle: I play the music at my own natural pace, then I adjust the metronome to match the tempo I've created.
Having two methods might create confusion for beginners and amateurs who are used to hearing beats in a specific tempo. With a single beat Maelzel metronome, 100 quarter notes per minute sounds the same as 100 half-notes per minute. The composer indicates how many beats to play, regardless of the metronome's speed. You determine the audible tempo, not the metronome setting. Confusing to beginners?
MuseScore allows you to set any tempo you desire, while a mechanical metronome has a physical limit, usually around 208 beats per minute. (Beethoven's metronome only went up to 160!) If I want to HEAR 500 quarter notes per second in MuseScore, I can.
50:10 still here!
Still here at the very end! Give me a little heart 😊❤
50:00 I'm here!
❤
I'm still here 51:00
still here 49:58
And the forgotten etude??
43:10
It’s the manuscript of opus 10 no. 2 which has quarter notes in the right hand
49:58 Still here. Best channel on RUclips 😎
Repetition of the mechanisms allow 20+ cycles per second, for a reason. And this achievement is repeated over years with physical wear. Why go through the engineering?
A player's first commandment should be first don't distort the composer's intention.
First
You beat me.
Here until the end
Not first! 😂
I feel like Chopin is the one of the best arguments for the whole beat, because in the whole beat the études sound surprisingly beautiful, but in the single beat they're not only unplayable, they're unlistenable, and it's a great injustice to a great composer.
Come on. Listen to Beatrice Rana play the op. 25 etudes and honestly tell me that's unlistenable.
just wait till this guy hears anything other than chopin etudes in whole beat. THATS unlistenable