23 Notes a Second, Olympic Record for Pianists or not? Isidor Philipp and Beethoven's legacy {Ep.1}
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- Опубликовано: 3 окт 2024
- 23 notes a second, that is the exact number of notes the famous pianist and teacher Isidor Philipp would have wanted you to play. At least if you were one of his students back in the days. There is no doubt Philipp was not joking when writing his metronome numbers down. He confirmed them in his prefaces as concrete end result of his practicing method. But... 23 notes a second????
Let's tackle this 'mystery' once and for all. Episode number 1 out of 4
All episodes will be published in this playlist:
bit.ly/2IkNR89
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#isidorphilipp #20thcenturydoublebeat #authenticsound
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The title page I show for that incredible double beat source given by Edouard Jue in 1838 is not the right one... sorry for that inconvenience, here's the link to the scanned version, now on IMSLP as well: hz.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/6/6f/IMSLP386376-PMLP624704-lamusiqueapprise00juee.pdf
@@partytf2576 Sorry, can I just check, what has a different book by a different author that says something different to the quote in the book Wim did end up showing got to do with what the quote means that Wim did show?
This is like saying "I can run the 100 meters in 10 seconds" and you in the same year saying "I can only run the 100 meters in 12 seconds, so therefore that guy must be wrong about doing it in 10 seconds." If what I think you're showing is accurate then all you've done is show there's a second system at play at the same time, not refute the original quote. If the quote you've provided actually does directly comment/refute the one by Edouard Jue then I'm all ears and happy to listen, but I'm confused as to what your point exactly and would happily listen to your explanation.
Thank you.
@@partytf2576 Right a few issues here.
Firstly, you would have to provide actually definitive proof of a metronome mark being a misprint/error to establish that rather than a speculative assertion that you've made. Otherwise it falls foul of the fallacy of confirmation bias EVEN IF YOU'RE CORRECT ABOUT IT BEING A MISTAKE.
Secondly, Wim knows about single beat uses. He has videos explicitly showing them all the way back to 1822 in the form of vincent novello. He thinks hannons exercises are single beat, in a comment section he thinks that the music mendelssohn wrote and published in england looks suspiciously like single beat. So to say he avoids single beat stuff is flat out evidently false.
Thirdly, I am perfectly willing to accept the truth of what your quote say (as I don't speak French and I'm willing to trust you) but how does it contradict that the whole beat description is being used? The fact that it also has the single beat option tied into it is just as much evidence that both single beat and whole beat were used by different people at different times. Which could also be very much the case for isidor philipe's recording of mozart's piano concerto (also if you could provide a link or at least a description of where to find his mozart metronomisation I'll happily take a look at it)
But you know what, ignore everything I just said above. If you're going to reply again, please can you do this one thing to establish that you understand how to argue against Wim's position by having the correct starting point.
Please steel man Wim's position.
So in other words, please tell me exactly what Wim thinks and why as best and as fully as you can. I would like you to explain Wim's position as sincerely and accurately as if he was explaining it. (Obviously within reason, I don't expect you to get it 100% accurately given that you're not Wim)
I know his position. I spend almost everyday thinking about the arguments for and against single beat or whole beat and I have mulled over what I consider what would even be theoretically valid evidence in favour of either position, plus what would count as refutation of one position whilst also not serving as proof for the other side of the argument. I've been thinking about this pretty much daily for years, there are parts that I technically disagree with, things I can't verify what with my limitations to resources and thus have to forcibly remain agnostic on, but I know his position very very well.
My suspicion is that you don't know the exact nature of his position, but if you do you'll be able to explain what he thinks and the reasons why in convincingly detailed ways I'll happily back track on that and consider you as quite the reasonable individual for this. Otherwise, if you can't, you automatically by default fall foul of the strawman fallacy.
(And to make myself clear I'll write this next bit in capitals)
IF YOU COMMIT THE STRAWMAN FALLACY THEN YOUR ARGUMENTS IN FAVOUR OF SINGLE BEAT BECOME INVALID EVEN IF SINGLE BEAT IS 100% CORRECT!!!!!
This is why fallacies are to be avoided, because they then make it impossible to deduce the truth of anything.
So, please, I invite you to fully explain the details of Wim's position, which if you know, should be a simple task.
I happily await your response, and you're free to take as long as you like, and I reserve the right to think you don't know what you're talking about. (If you do achieve it I will more than happily apologise and correct myself)
Thank you
@@partytf2576 Right, I've only just woken up and there's A LOT to get through so forgive me if this is slightly more delayed than I'd like and a very long post.
I'm gonna write this first thing to really fully establish exactly where I am and what I think, because as I eluded to above I do not agree with Wim in his entirety about very specific technical details. Also I want to make it very very VERY clear as to why, and to what extent, I can interact and contribute to this debate.
(PLEASE FOCUS ON WHAT'S SAID HERE)
I am not a musicologist, and especially not a tempo historian. By the way you talk, and the arguments you give, I willing to bet a heavy amount of money that you're not a tempo historian either. (That's as far as I'd say on that one since you may have much better access and be in a much better position regarding sources.
Even though this is the case, I can easily apply myself with respect to dissecting the logic in arguments to see if they are sound in their reasoning. (And before you start questioning my ability to use logic like multiple single beat proponents have done at the mention of it, my 1st class degree is in mathematics and some final year courses were in logic. I'm pretty well educated in knowing what logical fallacies are and how to spot them, and I'll go into that as I carry on.)
So, because I can tell a good argument from a bad argument, this is now what I have concluded is true of this debate:
1. Assuming I don't have enough resources at hand (which is often true of both sides of the debate I find), critiquing a logical argument as invalid can do no more than establish the failure to prove one position, and possibly refute the other side depending on the nature of the argument and how valid it is. But in general, not much can be said about the truth of either side just because certain arguments fail.
2. Since I don't have everything at hand and it strikes me that since there could be some weird third option that no one has thought of yet, the single/whole beat debate is NOT a true dichotomy. Admittedly I don't see a third option at all forthcoming, but not matter how highly highly HIGHLY unlikely it is, it seems at least feasible in principle it could exist especially since I can't see what argument by necessity reduces everything down to these 2 options and nothing else. Thus, when it comes to this debate, until Wim's book comes out with all the possible evidence that is reasonably sourced put together in a scientifically presented way (i.e. hypothesis, method, results, conclusion type deal) technically, if you really force my hand, my epistemology (philosophical outlook as it were) commits me to a position of agnosticism. I would genuinely be worried about confirmation bias to definitively say one position or the other it absolute in any given specific example. (But again it depends on the context). Also agnosticism seems appropriate since I think there's enough evidence to establish that both systems did exist.
3. An argument is convincing (speaking for myself now) if it is reasonable as an explanation and has other evidence supporting it that is also reasonable in it's interpretation, given the context of how it fits in with other evidence (I've probably not phrased that too well, but it'll get more apparent once I go into critiques and assertions.
4. I'm not a historian but I've watched a lot of stuff regarding the historical method, and spoken to a few PhD historian friends of mine, and I know pretty well how historicity is established and "proven", and I've written that in quote marks because, one of the main principles of history is to deduce what most likely happened in the past. It's effectively a probability argument a lot of the time, and any desire to having the smoking gun/silver bullet proof one way or the other simply does not exist at all for about 99% of established history. It would have to be rejected for simply not reaching an almost impossibly high bar. Now that's not to say we shouldn't act as if we can't find things that prove stuff beyond all doubt but there has to be extreme caution as to what we can definitely say about it in terms of any extrapolation. Although it does strike me as the more you can argument concisely with data that clearly connects together, it allows you to increase your confidence in stuff even if there's elements of ambiguity that still exist. (That gets me onto point 5)
5. Every piece of evidence, and every idea, and every interpretation must be (or least should be) fully explored in terms of it ability to establish something, and to what extent it can be applied elsewhere. So example if I said Czerny definitely and provably used whole beat for opus 337, that implies any piece where whole beat can applied is valid (e.g. carl reinecke's etudes), this would be a false conduct of logic to my mind because that wouldn't follow by necessity. (I'd even be cautious as to say it applies to other Czerny opuses by default. I would still think you'd to reason for it, although it probably would become a touch easier at that point.)
I think that covers a lot of where I'm at (even if it's not perfectly phrased), so I'm now going to respond to each point in your response in another comment, because this is too long already.
@@partytf2576 First things first, I asked you to explain Wim's position sincerely as if he was telling me himself. The best you did was say (I'm paraphrasing) "He thinks the 19th century metronome marks are way too fast so thinks they're double beat, and the only thing he relies on is the maezel instructions saying "part of the intended time"".
This shows a stunning lack of understanding in Wim's position for the following reasons.
1. That is NOT why he thinks whole beat is true. He goes into depth about the maezel instructions (in all the different translations, so he doesn't ignore those), he talks about the 1821 maezel article and doesn't ignore it, and your assertion that that's how he understands whole beat is a total mischaracterisation (which is exactly what I suspected in the form of accusing you as the strawman fallacy)
2. The fact that you still refer to it as double beat when Wim has been referring to it as Whole beat for the last 3 years slightly suggests that you're not keeping up with this debate at all. (But this might just be a neuroses on my part so I'm gonna exactly die on that hill.
3. you say he either ignores evidence for single beat, when actually he replies to those counterarguments in the comments sections, and even in recent videos says he's collating them to provide a rebuttal in the forthcoming book. The book on whole beat will be of no significance at all if he doesn't include this, and that's why providing these counterarguments is really important and useful. Because, either they're no good and can be dismissed, or they provide much finer detail in the grander context of what exactly occurred and when. This is exactly what I'd expect from a man who is taking this seriously. He talks about exactly this in multiple videos.
You SHOULD know all of this. You've said that you've seen many of his videos, even "too many" to quote you, in which case you have absolutely no excuse whatsoever to assert that that is Wim's position and why he thinks whole beat is correct. The brevity and vagueness of you summation of how he thinks is completely unacceptable if it's true that you know his position as well as you do. Now maybe it's me being generous or just me being naive, but I'll give you another opportunity to give his exact position as fully as possible, and give clear things he says that underpins his understanding of tempo and thus why the whole beat metronome practice makes sense to him.
I'll give an example with respect to Martin Noorduin (very much a non whole beat believer)
Noorduin, thinks that the metronome marks are single beat and are totally genuine (so nothing like misprints can explain away notes a second that's too fast, nor broken metronome theories, or anything along those lines), and he thinks the variable use of the metronome as put forward by talsma is wrong, and uses the fact that it's wrong to justify the only option left being single beat (that seems too much like a confirmation bias to my mind given his lack of detail in that explanation, but that's a side point that doesn't impact what his position actually is). However, it would appear he hasn't read tact und pendelschlag by lorenz gadient, so assuming that's true, it gives a more exact position of where he's at (but again this is under the assumption that he hasn't read it more recently.)
He thinks the metronome marks of Czerny are exact but also known to be impossible even back in the days of Czerny. He thinks this via quotes he provides (I can't remember those details right off the top of my head, but it's fair to say he provides quotes that he argues using he reasoning that they were always known to be too difficult, thus explaining why they're "impossible")
Now here's a bit of speculation on my part, I suspect he thinks that this is applicable reasoning to assert all other "impossible" metronome marks follow this type of reasoning, but doesn't really fully go into why it is that these would be written down as impossible. So it may still the case he's merely trying to establish that this sort of thing can occur and needs to be considered in the zeitgeist (as it were) when discussing these metronome marks. I would think that a perfectly worth while debate point if that's how he thinks but this is somewhat the limit of my knowledge.
That's not much info at all, but it sums up what I know about a position he holds and why. But let's do another guy, Klaus Mehling, the main single beat guy who has the most info at his fingertips and has been in a 25 year long email correspondence with Lorenz Gadient over this exact topic.
Klaus mehling also thinks the metronome marks are literal and not errors or elusive targets (so that is very admirable in my mind, not just making up excuses for other things when he doesn't like them).
He cites Mersenne's pendulum treatise on tempo as an accurate source baroque tempo for the following centuries (which I would agree with but depends on the interpretation) and his interpretation is because of the length of how long a single swing takes is the same as the heartbeat length of time (as described by mersenne) and thus we know it exactly (I would disagree with that interpretation but that is his position). He then argues that knowing what this is gives us in terms of tempo can by applied to other descriptions of tempo based on inferences of what they say (again I would agree with this idea in principle) and this then carries on throughout up until the invention of the metronome (so there isn't this massive detachment in how people understood tempo, it's actually a continuous line stretching back, which again is something I agree with), and thus because the speeds of mersenne and other pendulum notations and other methodological ways of obtaining tempo concide with the single beat speeds given in the metronome marks, we know they're accurate.
He admits that some metronome marks (e.g. the metronomisation of mozart operas as just one example) are extremely fast possibly to the point of being too fast. But I think he doesn't except this as a refutation of the single beat idea inandof itself (I would somewhat agree here but I'll get into that during latter points), however when he published his book, he never looked into what the speeds would actually be in terms of playing, and just stated the tempo outright regardless of consequence. This feels to me like he's doubling down and reverse engineering that these speeds were possible given that he's committing to his conclusions first (the confirmation bias again), but I'm not 100% sure on that so I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt.
Seemingly his arguments with Lorenz gadient boil down to a factor of 2 and that will come down to specific interpretations of very specific information, not general principles.
Again this is not a full representation of Klaus Mehling's position just because I don't have all the possible info on him but it's pretty accurate and detailed. So again I ask can you tell me Wim's exact position and why, detailed in a way like I have and without providing counter arguments even if you disagree, I just want you to, in detail, give his fundamental underpinning as why he thinks the whole beat system is true and things he cites as evidence for that fundamental underpinning (*whispers* 'fundamental underpinning' is a clue btw. And you have no excuse not to be able to do it like I did with 2 single beat proponent if you actually watch Wim's own videos as much as you claim. Although in your defense, I suspect people who agree with Wim don't watch his videos as much as I would so they wouldn't pass this test I'm setting either thus I wouldn't particularly listen to them as well, which is why it's so important you actually get this right and we can eliminate the strawman fallacy. When we do, I will explicitly apologise and say sorry.)
Anyway, I'm having to cook food, work on things, and write this all at roughly the same time so I'm not exactly doing a great job of these replies not being shit, so again apologies for this being long and rambly, but I'll address your other points in another comment following on from this.
@@partytf2576 With respect to my accusation of confirmation bias, this is an accurate complaint and I shall explain why.
Firstly, the assertion that 23 notes is 9 notes more than the second highest speed is wrong, in following videos of this short series he goes further into phillip's numbers and gets up to 18 notes a second for the second highest, and with all the rhythmical variations you should do in tempo as well I suspect those slower "playable" ones get up to a rate of 20+ notes a second for the fastest note values, although I've not crunched the numbers on that so I'm not gonna assert that outright. But this is merely a side point I wanted to illustrate and doesn't bare too much significance.
Secondly, I gonna complement you here, the fact that you at least implicitly suggest that 23 notes a second would be an impossible playing speed is very admirable and commendable. To assert that they are playable and you should just practice more, like some single beat proponents do renders this whole debate completely nonsense in my eyes. So for that I will applaud you. However, the reason you're asserting this is a misprint is purely because it's 23 notes a second, you have no actual evidence for this claim (e.g. evidence the publishing company has a history of reprints due to printing errors, a reprint of this with different metronome marks, other known misprints in this work or other works of isidor phillip, letters of people complaining about the impossible speeds thus suggesting it may be a wrong metronome mark). The reason we reach 23 notes is purely due to the assumption of it being single beat, so instead of questioning that assumption you've invented an apologetic (excuse) of it being a misprint to hold on to the assumed premise rather than adjust the premise. This BY DEFINITION is the literally the confirmation bias fallacy, unless can you show more details about why that should be accepted (and no, the difference in note speeds is not evidence for this misprint because it's entirely dependent on the single beat assumed premise and thus it is trying to excuse information you don't like.)
I never see single beat proponents asserting that playable metronome speeds are misprints (e.g. quater note = 60 should be quarter note = 66). Just because something is unplayable doesn't mean it's misprint in exactly the same way that something being playable means it's not a misprint.
You need to have even just vague evidence of it being a misprint that is independent of either metronome practice assumption to then posit is as a plausible idea and not fall foul of confirmation bias.
3. I only just thought of this while typing this all out, but your argument to "prove" single beat given the misprint idea actually has another fallacy baked into it.
Your argument seems to go along these lines -
- The single beat speeds give us 23 notes a second
- the difference in the speeds to the next one is 9 notes a second
- this clearly would be a misprint
- therefore these metronome marks are single beat
But noticed what's happened their as a hidden assumption.
You can only deduce that 23 and 9 notes a second exist as facts if you assume single beat. But that means you assuming the conclusion that you're saying you prove.
Thus it is circular reasoning (another logical fallacy)
At this point I want to make something incredibly clear because for some reason single beat proponents never pick up on this no matter clearly I state it (and admittedly most people in most areas fail to do this as well so I don't wish to insinuate this of you individually as that would just be rude of me).
Even if we prove single beat 100% true in all aspect, to everyone's satisfaction, in all possible ways you could ever hope for, my critiques of your arguments "proving" single beat to be invalid WOULD STILL BE TRUE.
This is a misconception everyone seems to have. Just because an argument is no good does not mean you're saying the conclusion is wrong. And that is exactly what I'm saying about single beat. I'm pointing out where the arguments are unsound, I AM NOT showing why these arguments disprove single beat. I'll give 2 analogies to show why this is important.
Let's say I come to you with this argument -
"I know whole beat is true because I once kicked a piece of salmon out of a window"
Now, even if I did do that, and even if whole beat were true, you'd be perfectly within your rights to say that that argument doesn't prove shit. And that would be right because it's the non-sequitor fallacy. But you can't deduce anything about the conclusion because the argument doesn't work.
And this is where I slightly disagree with Wim's presentations about arguing for whole beat (although I suspect the book will be much tighter in its assertions. RUclips is not a repository for critical thinking and thus I'm gonna stay agnostic about it all).
To say that metronome marks are unplayable means that they're whole beat numbers, I would just about agree with you that that isn't proof inandof itself. Especially given that I don't think it's a true dichotomy and that both single beat and whole beat do exist. However, I think what it can do is outright disprove single beat in a very specific context.
Suppose we had a piece of music where we knew outright that the metronome marks were accurate from the composer, and they stated explicitly that they were to be played strictly in tempo, and there were no other things we could employ (e.g. momentary deviations from the metronome in difficult passages, and any hidden assumptions about misprints etc.), if that lead to a position where the technical ability to play the piece was literally impossible (e.g. over 20 notes a second) then that would refute the assumption (single beat) outright, at the very least in the case of that specific piece. That's before any other deductions can be made regarding any other works, which could still be perfectly single beat.
Personally I think we have those sorts of pieces but it might still be worthy of debate given the large number of factors that would have to coincide with.
But this analogy shows that just because an argument is wrong it doesn't mean we know anything more until we form more sound reasoning.
Secondly analogy would be, let's say I came to you saying "I can prove that 5+5=10 because of the fact that 2+2=5" well 5+5 does equal 10 but not because of that "fact". So again we have to be careful even what we conclude from false arguments let alone correct ones.
(I'm gonna move this onto another comment post cos it's too long again)
funny discussion with a teacher: "this chopin etude is supposed to be played at 140?? How is this possible" "nah it just means as fast as you can." "Then why did he write 140, not 150, or 160, or simply prestissimo" "I don't know. But that's how it is."
I played the Beethoven Op. 27 Nr. 2 III mvt. at 92 to the minim (double beat, of course) for my daughter's Beethoven-loving friend who studies with her, and he could not believe how much MUSIC appeared at that tempo, which, of course, he had never heard played so "slowly" because he simply cannae find recordings as such.
He was mesmerised and quite impressed!
He's a next-generation university guitar student. Let's how many more I might "corrupt" before my daughter gets out of school in four years! HAHA!!!!!
You can find at the bachscholar channel a very well played version that is very slow compared to other pianists. I suggest you to try that, and check other music on this channel as well.
@@classicgameplay10 Thank you, Classic. I am familiar with Corey. In fact, if you go to his interpretation of the sonata movement in question, and put it at 75%, that's about where I play it. The difference is that many who play within the limits of this era don't "quite" have the "charisma" for lack of a better word. These pieces though slow require a set of dynamic and articulation skills that really require compleat control over each finger as a separate member of your "manual orchestra", and lots simply don't possess it, hence, they learn to play lightning fast, which doesn't require much technique. It is for that reason that they don't quite pull off the slower movements.
Thanks for sharing, Classic!
This video blew my mind. I wasn’t aware the recordings existed.
The pugno recording is deliciously ironic because it achieves what single beat claims of early recordings fail to do so. It demonstrates explicit intention. He clearly states what the thinks the tempo should be based on the exact published metronome mark and then plays it exactly at half the speed. Single beaters only say things along the lines of "look this is single beat speed therefore single beat is correct", ignoring that very important middle bit of explainkng why the pianist chose that tempo
Tempo decides the character of a piece. I. Really hate pianists who play some of the beethoven sonatas too fast, just because they can.
The editions are hilarious xD I cried from laughing too much...
Great video btw, haven't heard anyone else talking about this...
Your work is a wonderful gift to the world of classical music and history that I fear will not be fully known or appreciated for a long time, even now in the age of information. You my friend, I think will be spoken of as a champion of reason and music in the future.
looking forward to the rest of the series, thanks wim
If there's an Academy Award for funniest and most informative youtube videos, this gem gets the nomination! I always ignored Isidor Phillip due to his nutty, bat sh*t crazy MM numbers. Perhaps I should revisit that.
I revisited Bartok's Folk Dances, and what I found is that the tempo's interpreted in double beat actually sound like the traditional dances they represent. This tells me that Bartok was likely a double-beat composer as well.
@Marquis De Sade Thanks for this. I just checked universal edition tempo against some field recordings and they are indeed single beat.
Bartok's arrangements of folks dance tunes often were somewhat removed from the source material's tempo. Having said that, Hungarian and Romanian folk musicians too will play the same tunes at radically different tempos depending on whether they are playing to listen to, or to dance to. For example, Bartok's |"pe loc" (3rd of the Romanian dances) is usually played much slower than a village musician would play it for dancers. As an example, here is the pe loc played and danced as it would be in the village : ruclips.net/video/baYRLRCeP5E/видео.html
Wow Wim, thank you very much for sharing this incredible information with us! The recent videos along with the beginning of the Beethoven Project were just simply phenomenal!
So, thank you very much for the effort you put into the production of these videos and livestreams, simply keep up the great work!
Have a great week, Stefan.
Thanks Stefan!
Winters, your making me doubt my musical history knowledge again. STOP IT!
truth and reality can really hurt sometimes, eh? ;)
See it as a choice!
To doubt your knowledge is the beginning of wisdom and the path to true knowledge. When I studied the piano in the 1970's, W F Bach was supposed inferred to be either a depressed individual or an alcoholic and not someone caught in the crossroads of change in musical tastes, Soler and Seixas were second rate Scarlatti influenced composers (contrary to some of Scarlatti's comments on Seixas, Haydn and Mozart had the most influence of Beethoven (not Clementi, Salieri, or Albrectsberger in addition to the influence of Haydn), and I could go on by piano teachers on their young charges. Oh, yes, then there's the "J S Bach would have loved the sustain pedal and wrote with the modern Steinway in mind for the WTC and his keyboard words as a future, yet to be achieved ideal instrument" which was then and is now hogwash. Part of a music education is to challenge constantly what you have learned, been taught, or accepted as dogma. (Which I did in the 1970's, when schools still taught critical thinking skills.) Wim's hypothesis on double beat, and pianopat's single beat refutation is part of that process, which I must confess that there is evidence to support the use of both in the 19th century and into the early 20th century, but not proof of only one system being used. Wim makes allowances provides more evidence to support double beat, where pianopat has a more single minded bias towards only single beat which falters when the physics involved (how many notes per second), is unlikely. I appreciate the humor in your comment. Happy doubting.
Maybe you have already addressed this question in another video, but let me ask you how this understanding of tempi shifted. When did our understanding begin to change, and who were the proponents behind this paradigm shift? This very interesting to me as a musician as well as my husband, who deeply appreciates music.
Thank you for your research, Wim.
~Kay and Matthew Brown
Thanks Wynona, that's the golden question. I touch upon it in this video with the Pugno case. Come back to that in future episodes. Wish we had the letters of all of the Pugno's, Philipp's, ...
yes,@@AuthenticSound, a future full video -- it might take a short series? -- would be important, in which you outline the steps (the interpreters/performers, the cultural context, the institutional context of conservatories, etc) whereby the single beat interpretation overrode the existing and longstanding practice.
Guiomar Noaves was a pupil of Phillip's and he thought she was the very best piano performer of all his students. She recorded all the Chopin Etudes, but she plays they as fast as we hear from anyone else. I think this cuts against your theory. However, in discussing this matter with my friend Stephen, we think because Philipp was the head of the piano department at the Paris Conservatory, there we no doubt much pressure for pianists to play very fast in order to be able to create a career. Therefore, it is possible that Philipp knew that the real music was double beat, but acquiesed to the reality that the music industry requires faster playing.
Both Stephen and I studied under Harold Bradley for many years, and Bradley studied with Philipp in the late 1920s and continued the association until Philipps death over 30 years later. Unfortunately, we have no information that can settle this issue, but we do know that Bradley often told us that pianists play older music much too fast, and that included everyone from Bach to Chopin. Bradley told me that tempos have indeed speeded up over the centuries, and that we know that an Allegro in Mozart's time was slower than today's. I think this supports your theory.
It means nothing more than that they were not at all interested in playing early music according to a past tradition nothing more nothing less. What factually is true, is that his own MM were ought to be played accordingly, and that simply is impossible. Avoid the trap of single beaters who will start by saying 'it is all nonsense' and immediately divert from the real question to solve which is: how on earth play those etudes in those tempi, going up to 23 notes a second. As long that's not solved or done, double beat stands even if it came without any splinter of written sources. Which on top is not the case, everyone denying the Jue source is clearly describing double beat in 1838 is denying the sun light. Hope this clarifies a bit!
@@AuthenticSound I agree with you and love your work. I have always thought that Chopin is played way too fast because we cannot hear the rapidly shifting harmonies or the complex things he is doing there or in the left hand. Why write it like that, and then suggest a speed so fast you can't hear it? I have always thought the Etudes are played way too fast.
Interestingly, I found an article in Etude magazine written by Philipp in which he quotes from all the great pianists of the late 19th century. Each one stresses that the greatness of the Etudes are in their beauty and their musicality, which they say has never been equaled. They were not interested in them as virtuosic pieces, but as great works of music.
Bravo, Wim.
Only that playing that fast is not music. It is just acrobatics on the keyboard.
Great video Wim ! Lots of interesting information and well made !
Thanks Christian!
But... but... people and pianos were genetically superior 200 years ago!
Just kidding. A wonderful video once again, Wim! Very informative quotes that really don't leave much to interpret. Also nice demonstration of the absurdity of those high speeds. Really nice, eager to see the future episodes!
Your channel has open my mind! In your opinion, how is it possible that around 1950 or 1960, when there still were pianists of the older generation, nobody has transmitted this knowledge?
Revisiting your work. This is clear and convincing to me. There are so many closed minds.... not just in music. Power is addictive.
I suppose playing a single note repeatedly with two hands can accomplish the goal of setting a speed record, but there's nothing musical about it. Watching that being done, and I keep thinking oh that poor piano! Yeah try that on a Viennese piano from 1805-1830s. :-)
If we look at the Phillip exercises, you'll notice they are written in key signatures, which involve all the fingers and are written in key signatures that are awkward to play in such as C-sharp major. Playing something quickly in E-major, B-major, F-sharp, or A-major is a heck of a lot easier. Playing in C-sharp is like walking on a tight rope because there's that constant "fear" of falling off the edge. If one can play quickly and flawlessly in C-sharp, well I'll hand it to them.
As I've said before in other posts, my early piano teacher studied with Phillip in the early 1940s. It would be great to show her this video, but sadly she is 98 years old she now, has dementia, and is very blind. If only this video was around only 6 years ago, she would have enjoyed this immensely.
What's interesting is she was never about speed, but was 100% all about accuracy and playing to the bottom of the key bed. The firm playing, which she got from Phillip and passed on to me, has allowed me to play not only clearly, but also very accurately. Even to this day, when I learn something new, I will go through the music slowly and firmly as if to wire up the connections between my brain and my fingers. What is interesting is, those pieces I did not do that on are those that are never solid so-to-speak and full of holes. Having said that, I had a few teachers in between that insisted that the old methods are no longer necessary, and it's the works I studied with them that never were complete.
Anyway one of her main teachers was Beveridge Webster who was also a student of Phillip, and he complained about the then current pianists playing too fast with little emotion. This has me confused what Phillip was trying to accomplish in his exercises if they are all about achieving the highest tempos possible as these metronome markings are pretty hefty goals to attempt.
Mr. Winters - I ALWAYS wondered why those MM were so ridiculous! THANK YOU for enlightening me ♥♥♥
glad this was helpful, lot's to rediscover now!
This quote is absolutely without any doubt a description of a double beat. The other quotes you described in your previous videos let interpretation open, but this one around 10:00 is absolutely clear and undeniable.
@@pianopat I'm unconvinced; he talks of "two oscillations of the pendulum". Evidently it's the pendulum of a metronome, not of a clock; clock pendulums swing once a second, therefore two movements take 2 seconds, that's an unbearably slow 30 to the quarter note, extremely difficult to stick to.
The following line mentions clearly swinging the hand and similarly, use two movements of hand for one quarter note.
It's true that page 82 he says that "one movement marks one note", but this seems contradictory nonetheless.
I'm wondering if it's the same book, I can't find Wim's quote in it.
Wim took the quote out of context, he's merely saying you should practise extra slowly like twice as slow it's not instructions to use a metronome
@@addictbach4509 But is the complete oscillation made up of eights or quarters? According to the 1st part it is made up of 8ths which is double beat. Where does he equate each half swing with quarter notes? In the triple rhythm, each 8th would still be a half swing, and when he introduces quarters in triple time, each 8th is also still a half swing. He is not describing the tempo inequalis as described by Wim or Lorenz, but he isn’t describing single beat for triple time, either.
The metronome was invented by this time, so even if he was referring to an actual pendulum, why would that make a difference? The metronome is a direct evolution of a pendulum as a timekeeper. If musicians used a pendulum a certain way, it would be a logical progression that they would use a pendulum metronome in the same way.
@@jasonniehoff9372 You are correct, Jason. Since this whole discussion began - or better, since I joined the channel and have learnt about all of the discussions about pendulums - I have become quite the "horologist". I am really into it. I delved into it because of Beethoven's supposed "broken" Metronome. I have proved that a farce. In fact, yesterday, I shared with Wim a very raggedy prototype for a really cool metronome I'm working on. That being prefaced:
Since the time of Crotch and Quantz through Young through the advent of the Metronome, the idea of "oscillation", "swing", and other words to describe the entire movement of the pendulum from origin to origin HAD NOT CHANGED. The ideas of "vibration" and "beat" as well retained their meanings as HALF of the former. The idea of tracking time (logging hours - Horologium) has been with us since the "verge" days of the late 1300's. Follow Galileo's ideas of "isochronism" with later proofs by Huygens and his experiments with using pendulums with the verge escapement later turning to the anchors, etc. These guys KNEW about a "vibration" and a "oscillation" or "swing", ZERO QUESTION in my mind having read them.
Now, TO-DAY, musicians are not well-educated in how and why music works as the ancient masters were certainly. I don't expect - unless the musician tunes his own instrument - that he really understands what's going on "behind the scenes", and since they spend countless hours trying to out-"virtuosity" each other by playing at speeds even if attained are unintelligible to the listener, that they have time to truly understand MUSIC! They are athletes in "sporting events" instead of true "concerts" being played by true MUSICIANS (of which Wim ranks VERY HIGHLY!).
You are correct, too, about the understanding of the Metronome. Maelzel's Metronome was received as a pendulum (curiously a vertical foliot turned double-weighted pendulum, which can be adjusted to different periods by moving either the top "nut" or bottom "bob"). This pendulum as I stated was adjustable, and it was powered by a spring drive via a 96-tooth main wheel turning an 8-leaf driven pinion that was connected to a "pinwheel" escapement. A failure in any of the parts would render the MM inoperable. As I mentioned above, if Beethoven tossed this time piece across the room, failure would have been immediately noticeable.
As a side note about Beethoven: he seemed to LOVE time pieces, and he owned lots of clocks and watches. He knew what they were, and his discussions with old Maelzel must have been the stuff of legend but NEVER ignorance on the workings of a clock.
I feel for folks who tenaciously hold to paradigms that attempt to suggest - to them - that all that they learnt and spend copious amounts of money on at conservatory or university apparently were untrue. Imagine building your "persona" and "professional identity" on the ability to outdo, outperform, out-virtuosity every one else in the market only to find out that it was all garbage and hype! As a human being, I would, too, react strenuously; however, at the end of the day, truth will out. I think lots of us just want the straight dope about it, and let the chips fall where they may.
The truth will appear, and I will accept it either way.
Sorry it went long - lots of stuff to discuss!
@@pianopat Not exactly convinced, as the pendulum hadn't been used in music for quite some time. "Galileo Galilei first studied and discovered concepts involving the pendulum in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. In 1696, Etienne Loulié first successfully used an adjustable pendulum to make the first mechanical metronome-however, his design produced no sound, and did not have an escapement to keep the pendulum in motion. To get the correct pulse with this kind of visual device, the musician watches the pendulum as if watching a conductor's baton. I would appreciate a citation as to the self taught beginner's use as to the use pendulums; I have not read of such in my half century of keyboard playing.
Beethoven (moonlight sonata mvt.3) has 20 notes/second marked:
metronome mark: half note = 150 bpm, therefore quarter is 300 bpm, eighth 600 bpm (left-hand speed) and sixteenth 1200 bpm (right-hand speed)
you have made videos on the 'broken' metronome theory, but 20 notes/sec is still a bit sketchy
Great job Wim.
I'll second that!
I really enjoy your videos. It puts music playing in a different perspective. Because as a musician there are bench marks set which is often like reaching for the sky and one begins to doubt the ability to play. But you are right music playing is its own bench mark.
yeah more things to confuse me so im confused do they play slower or faster than we do today because like I'm confused
Hi Wim
I am performing Bach prelude fugue in d minor no6 on piano. I copied your cadence for the prelude because it sounds so cool and my professor doesnt like the held C# in the right hand and thinks it should resolve immediately. What can I say to convince him? Or perhaps its not suitable on piano but works on clavichord? thoughts? resolving it early makes the rest of the thing not work as well like the G resolving to F# and the left hand octave. He says I dont need to resolve the G.
Always use your ears at the end. There's indeed the possibility that something that works great on the clav does not on the piano. I would suggest talk to your teacher, he seems to have a defined idea and isn't opposed to add some ornaments in Bach's music for which he deserves all credit!
@@AuthenticSound My piano professor and another guy that also has a doctorate in music, main criticism with my playing of the prelude is that it sounds like 8/8 rather than 4/4. They're definitely not used to this different characteristic of the piece. (Although, I didn't necessarily play it perfectly, and maybe even played slower than you.) But curious what you're thoughts are about the piece sounding like 8/8 rather than 4/4. Along with that comment was that I played very "notey".
Czerny’s “School Of Philosophy” or “School of Velocity”!?! I have to listen again for CONTENT.... not simply enjoyment!!
If you say it fast enough, who can tell? :D
Thank you for another great video! For years I could not understand those metronome numbers... I think I am quite convinced now.
I mean: the A Hz kept rising and rising why not the tempi as well? It's a modern taste that maybe applies well to the modern instruments but the research you do is extremely interesting! Keep up the good work!
Thanks Marcello!
What a beautifull recording that one of Chopin, the old ones, where can I find them?
Just use the youtube search bar, they're easy to find
Very good video I enjoyed it
Great video!!!!!!!
Wow, what an interesting topic for a video Mr. Winters 😊
Thank you Marcuss, please call me Wim!
Glad to see Walter Lewin here!!
Isn't that one of the greatest lectures ever given?
Your single most convincing video on double-beat.
Thank you so much Wim for your extensive work and also for publishing it in a perfect way on youtube. In my opinion your explanation about the tempi is irrefutable in many ways.
I passed the link to my older sister, who is a (good) amateur-pianist, still playing for fun. And guess what ... this knowledge gave her back the courage to keep on studying the old masters while and not being ashamed about her playing. We are used to, and brought up with all those sentational cannonball interpretations and therefore often loose courage to keep on working.
I also speak for myself: as a (good) amateur guitarplayer, thanks to your evidence, I rediscovered some pieces which I was frustrated about because of the speed by the many frenetic musicians that you meet on youtube. I re-worked some of that pieces to a more humane tempo and I am very glad to be able to play works that seemed even impossible for my worn out fingers. But that's not all of it:
For me, good music can dig into the human soul, and gives this soul the opportunity to contemplate. The contrary of this is exterior and volatile pleasure. Now, in music both appearences can occur simultaneously, which is a natural representation of the human soul and body.
Since I came across to your videos, I remembered the words of one of my best teachers: if you are going to a Forte, keep down to Piano before, if you are going to an accelerato, slow down before. (That was Toyohiko Satoh in Den Haag). Very wise words!
I also observe that, the better one constrains a piece, the quicker you begin to play it. As a musician you must always be aware of this. It is about the same thing that occurs with many inarticulate youtube films or even telling a bed-time story to your children: reading goes much faster than telling a story so that the audience (i this case my grand-children) can understand it! So keep your tempo down in telling a bed-time story to your children, and keep your tempo down if you want to make your audience to contemplate.
So, why not articulating more the notes and their aim, instead of trying to appear to be a fenomenal and technical musician. And this brings me to retail car-sellers who recommend a car they even never drove by themselves.
Keep up your work Wim and keep on publishing video's in 'real time', and thank you for all!
Well Wim, i think i have heard one time that in a book from the baroque era it is said that a harpsichordist has to be able to play 17 notes a second, but stil double beat makes more sense in my opinion because those notes should normally be trills or something like this. I think it is said in l'Affilard
Mersenne. Yes, that's important, it refers to the 'second' as described as double-second. So about 8 notes a second was his limit, which matches that of many still today really good players
So can you say where exactly or quote the text because how can a second become 2 seconds? I do not understand what is a double second, it is a unit of time it has not the ambiguity of metronome numbers
Just a practical question : It seems quite clear and indisputable , based on this video, that the single beat and double beat interpretations of metronome co-existed for quite some time. In the case of an impossibly (or nearly so) fast metronome marking it may often be apparent that a double beat interpretation is called for. Conversely, I would think that there are instances where using the double beat interpretation would result in a tempo too slow (musically), at odds with the verbal tempo indication (e.g. something marked "allegro furioso" coming out as "mildly annoyed moderato" at double beat), or at odds with descriptive name of the piece given by the composer or the publisher. Can you suggest some sort of objective guideline as to how to go about deciding whether a given marking is to be interpreted as single or double beat ? i.e : some guidance as to when the double beat interpretation was standard, when single and double beat interpretations co-existed (and where) and from which point only single beat was used to mark tempi ?
That's exactly what I was thinking at.Guess that it comes to one musical sense and technical ability to get the things done right.
Don't fall for his bs, double beat never existed please go speak to an actual musicoligst. I can assure you any composer that wrote down the metronome marking(so basically all after Beethoven) intended you to play at that speed. If there's a single composer you believe wanted you to play it half the tempo place share. Hell we've even got recordings of various composers playing it at full speed, This loony theory holds no water
@@mactire8557 I don't claim to be a musicologist or, indeed. any sort of expert musician. Nevertheless, it seems to me that Mr. Winters has extensive musical education, has done much research, and backs up his double beat hypothesis logically with actual historical written sources and examples, as he does in this video. As you do in your note, Mr. Winters also adamantly stresses that composers did indeed want people to perform their works at the metronome tempi they noted. It's how those markings are to be interpreted that is the issue. As far as your assertion that "we've even got recordings of various composers playing it at full speed", perhaps you can point me to those recordings of Chopin, Liszt, Czerny etc. playing their own compositions ? If not, all we have is clues left in written form as to the prevailing practice during that time (early to mid 19th century). One thing that does stand out to me is that often recordings of the great virtuosi of the past that are available from the beginning of the 20th century (Hubay, Fritz Kreisler, Paderewski, Caruso, Galli-Curci etc.) while displaying great musical ability, more often than not, on a purely technical level, the performers fall short of many of the later players/singers. It would seem unlikely to me that players even earlier (Chopin. Liszt. Beethoven) would have had technical abilities far surpassing the early 20th century musicians. The same phenomenon can be see in sports where the greats of the past often would never be able to qualify for the professional level today. I really do not know if Mr. Winters' hypothesis is correct or, perhaps, partially so - but I really don't think it can be dismissed as "BS" except by counter-arguments based on solid research and documentation (as some commenters do) or musical restrictions (e.g. if a particular aria is to be performed in double beat tempo can a singer possibly have the lung capacity etc.). This is, after all, an academic question and should be debated in a respectful, academic manner.
I think people confuse "furioso" and "with fire" as meaning "really fast". Furioso and "with fire" simply means the kind of sound or tone. You could maybe play slowly and play "with fire". You could definitely play slow and furious. Furious is just anger.
they have co-existed for a long time. But one author sticked to one method. Roughly before 1880-1900 90% was double beat, it changed after 1900. Here's a video on a really early single beater, Vincent Novello: ruclips.net/video/HqTPWO9bh-w/видео.html
How to understand this metronome indication (Beethoven 8th symphony 1st mvt 3/4 bar)
dotted half note = 69 or any metronome in 3/4 ?
Tempo inauqualis, see on the channel for some videos i'll make a new one asap, it is a very known concept, certainly relatedto the Tactus. Search also the two videos I made on Danel!
Nice
I dont know if I already asked you this, but have you ever touched on the subject of bach preludes ? This is something that you can hear played in almost all speeds here on youtube, but i would like to know more about how they SHOULD be played.
yes, there's a lot on that on my channel, look into the playlist sections and you'll find them
There were no metronomes in Bach's time, so you can only let the character of the music itself, and the tempo descriptors when they're present, guide you. This is why there's so much variability in Bach.
18:30 - This statement I felt all my life.
Keeping great individuals as "gods" doesn't help others learn from them.
I've felt that it was similar to the unachievable goals set in religion.
They both make you feel guilty for not being able to achieve these unrealistic goals.
I've doubted before of your proposition about the tempo issue, but this video was very powerful.
Thank you Wim for your work.
Thank you for sharing this
I think your therory works well for fast piano works. ...but what is about the slow ones? For example Chopin nocturne op 15. No. 3 Lento ( dottet halfnote 60 in 3/4 means 20 for the quater is already unbeleavabel slow ) would be 30 ? it is unrealistical slow for the "mazurka like" nocturne. How do you explain?
This reminds me of the super long lifespans reported in the Torah.
Given the premise (that the the tempi of mm markings are not-and never were achievable), how can your position be refuted? I must have missed something. Do people argue that they are indeed achievable? And/or do they really think the mm were “proposals” that composers believed might be ultimately achievable? As a novice and unschooled piano player, I happened to examine Czerny’s op 337 and immediately realized, even in my benighted ignorance, that the suggested tempi for the daily exercises seemed about twice what could be thought reasonable. It was only after this discovery that I found this research. I’m thus fully prepared to accept the thesis here! Thanks for this interesting and entertaining exposition.
Some people indeed keep telling exactly that or use the argument that the MMs were not meant to be played or at least never followed. But... the logic of it is so simple that it also puzzles me why it is so hard to accept...
You convinced me
wow. That was quite convincing. It goes a long way to support what I had felt and expressed early on in my following of your channel. The influence of guys like Rach and Horowitz was probably eccentric in the fast paces to an extreme amount. Their approach was populist, which meant that if the audience leapt to their feet at the end of a performance and clapped with maniacal enthusiasm, then accuracy be damned. That style sold out concert halls and made these performers quite rich. Then: they influenced several more generations and many if not almost all did not question the speeds. This speeding lasted until it finally started to be questioned with the original instrument orchestras and well, the rest is still being hotly debated.
Thanks Fred
I agree with the point you make, but allowing for a few exceptional occasions, Horowitz and Rachmaninov were not guilty of this. They were great interpreters, great musiciens. Horowitz was often at his greatest in slow pieces.
@@francissquire9910 we are talking about the overly fast speeds and H and Rach were serial speed demons. When playing soft tender music they made beautiful music. When they played fast it is argued that they both over did it.
This is what one often reads and hears about these two great pianists, but in general I disagree. Horowitz was critical of pianists who he considered to play very fast just to woo the crowds. Of course, there will always be arguments about what is a good tempo.
One occasion where Horowitz admitted playing too fast to impression was his New York debut where je played Tchaik 1 at a breath-taking speed. The public and critics were amazed. Rachmaninov went to see him after and said that although he showed that he could play faster and louder than anyone else, it was unmusical and he shouldn't have done it. Horowitz told Rachmaninov he was right, but did it because he was worried that unless he did something extraordinary they might not let him stay in America.
The only piece i am able to play in a single beat reading is the farewell waltz of Chopin.
There are recordings of some of Liszts students playing Chopins nocturnes. some may have heard chopin play. May be interesting to check their tempos.
the nocturnes are interesting material, they were (and still are) played oftentimes almost in whole beat. In general, these recordings must be put in the light of the context of the day, made a response video on this topic, should elaborate on it in the future a bit, but it might interest you: ruclips.net/video/O4kMXYb2pZM/видео.html
@@AuthenticSound thanks, i will watch that
I might note that pianopat in his video single beat refutation of this video, states that these MM numbers are "misprints" or errors on the publishers part. I find that highly unlikely.
The label of misprints is the true friend of the single beat believer. Miehling still might be the champion though 😄
Is there any instance of a metronome marked as double beats? In other words, have you ever heard of a metronome that was marked 60 but when set there produced a modern interpretation of 120?
The doubling of the original never happens since in many cases it would make no sense due to the too high tempi. MM of the great composers very rarely were touched, but forgotten as tempo indications. We should make a database of tempi from acoustcal recordings, those would give a very useful overview of tempi in the 20th c that we could compare
Paradox . Some exercices are indeed very hard , even nearly impossible to achieve. However there is an issue with the slow exercices , Phillip’s suite of exercices vary from slow to fast speed and the slow ones played in double beat don’t make any sense. Moreover , one can find recordings of Philip when he was 90 y old . BBC has aired the first movement of concerto 19 , it’s even on RUclips .He clearly played at usual tempo ( single beat) , so one has to be consistent . If Philip adopted the double beat theory , he would have adopted it for the slow exercices as well and he would have played historical pieces , using the same approach. It is simply not the case . What am I missing here ?
A possible explanation could be that he actually never played some of the exercises that he published, at the target intended speed.
Thanks for sharing this! One thing: 'usual tempo' is not single beat. One rarely hears single beat performances
AuthenticSound well there are much more recordings ( and this is an understatement) of sonata 19 at indicated tempo interpreted in single beat than in double beat therefore calling it ´usual’ is quite appropriate I’m afraid . Having said that, this is not what the discussion and the counter argument is about.
Thanks for your work Wim! Another topic worth addressing that relates at least indirectly to Philipp is tempo markings in Alkan. Philipp (along with Delaborde) is responsible for the editing in reprints of Alkan's works, although from what I can tell, the metronome markings in Alkan's first editions from before Philipp was born still weren't different. Comme le vent is one that's particularly relevant, as it contains unrelenting notes at 16/sec with a single beat approach. I've been working hard on it for a long time, and I can only manage about 9.5 notes per second throughout the piece. I'm torn on what to think, because, going with a double-beat approach (which would be 8 notes per second), I'm actually above tempo. But considering Alkan's reputation and the transcendental heights that Op. 39 is clearly going to, it seems like more excitement and fostering of transcendental technique comes about from pushing the tempo faster than I'm managing. On the other hand, treating the metronome marking literally with a single-beat approach is probably impossible. But only *just* impossible. So maybe Alkan's tempo marking is a single-beat one that's a little aspirational, but fundamentally "reasonable". Do you have thoughts on Comme le vent, or interest in talking about it in a video?
@@partytf2576 this is very interesting! What sources have you come across that contain Alkan's own timings of his performances?
@@partytf2576 thank you - that's a very interesting document!
You need the Physics concept of a CYCLE. The “up-down” of the metronome means one beat corresponds to one complete cycle.... returning the metronome “baton” to its original position, once every TWO “tics”. Think of the up-down of a complete baton cycle as the up-down of a spot on a bicycle wheel, as the spot completes one cycle, it returns to the place where it started (if you hold the wheel up in the air). You can even attach a laser pointer to the wheel to show the vertical motion only, by pointing the laser spot parallel to the wheel’s plane.
In physics the full cycle (period) indeed is still in use today
AuthenticSound actually, Wim a cycle (the frequency, technically) is measured by inverse time (in units of one over time) and the period itself is the technical name of the (amount of) time per cycle!
The matter is complicated by the fact that Isidor Phillipp uses single-beat indications elsewhere: His recording of the first movement of Mozart's K 459 is at the exact single-beat tempo of quarter note = 144 that he indicates in his own two-piano arrangement of that work: ruclips.net/video/ozKyeLYmSS8/видео.html (the score of Phillipp's edition is available on IMSLP). Maybe he used different methods of metronome notation depending on whether or not a work had already been published with double-beat indications?
That's a great question Mark, also one that comes to play with even Ravel (his own MM for the piano version of the pavane 4=80, replaced later by a much slower 4=54, while even people like Richter still play the piano version in 4=40! This is definitely an important period to study, would love to have the letters of Philipp, Pugno, Hanon, ...and those of the editors!
I have 2 editions ballade 1 op 23 gm.Kullak in the last part says 2/2 half note =120. Kohler says 4/4 quater note=116.Thats almost 50% slower,but pianists make that part really fast.
Kullak's MM are very good and all in the tradition of double beat. Check for instance his Chopin preludes edition and go to the 'slow' movements, you'll be surprised!
@@AuthenticSound Thank you very much.
Let’s say Beethoven was aware of how great he would be regarded for the rest of history.
I took the 208 bpm challenge. Like Josh Wright 184bpm got hairy. I switched from 184 qtr note to 92 half note (reduce # of tick tocks). That made it easier to follow the ticks. This way I reached 97 bpm half note or 194 bpm qtr note...12.9 notes per second, 1 octave, up-down, hands together. Barely. Couldn't repeat it consistently. 184 is more repeatable.
Thanks for sharing your experiment here!
Can you make a video on why composer choose crochet and quavers and not minimum and crochet, what is the true meaning. Isn't it easier to write music without drawing double or triple lines. Since the value of the notes are relative to MM, unless there is a specific reason related to the duration of 1 full beat. Or length of breath or bow strokes.
By the way, I found out that you quote from the second edition of the book by Edouard Jue. The first edition was published in 1824. I cannot find a link to that, but they have a copy at the Conservatoire National Superieur Musique et Danse de Lyon. It would be interesting to know if the same statement appears in that edition. I also found a link to a full-color scan of the 1838 edition: archive.org/details/lamusiqueapprise00juee/page/n6
Thanks Joseph!
@@addictbach4509 Thanks!
Thanks! What is interesting is that in the "Petit Dictionnaire" at the end of the book, he clearly makes a reference to paragraph 43 ("Imitons avec la main droite les deux oscillations du pendule...") in the definition of Metronome. It is rather straight-forward.
Wim, I don't know if you've gone over this before, but I wonder what the experience of playback speed of those who turned Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville's visual recordings of sound into audible sounds might have to contribute to you your research. I find your research quite convincing on interpreting metronome markings, at least in many instances, to be quite convincing. It would seem the researchers interpretation of phenotograms might have some relevance to it. You can hear a youtube of their work:
FIRST SOUNDS: Humanity's First Recordings of Its Own Voice
Thank you for sharing this Anthony! That recording is on the list to be one of the next important videos, connected to Lussy, where Lussy comment on exactly this song, but gives the MM (apperently according to that recording) in ... double beat. It will be one of the most remarkable stories for this research (for me too!)
Didn’t Hamelin Play 19 Notes per Second?
Bobowobo Hamelin is special.
🤯FINGERS FLYING OFF THE HAND🤯
Hey, I'm just wondering are there any physical examples of double beat metronomes?
You had all kinds of metronomes, even silent ones, pendulums were still much in fashion as well up to the late 19th century. Or the bell metronomes, here's a video on those: studio.ruclips.net/user/video3W5zvIoKPqQ/edit?MY_VIDEOS
Canadian_torch Historical metronomes of the pendulum variety existed through the middle of the last century.
I think the human eye can perceive 1/24 of a second, or just a little more than that, which is why the early films used 24 frames per second. The Ear May be different, psychophysically from the eye, but they use the same brain to interpret the results (though different regions). Anatomy and physiology do have lots to do with perception as well as capabilities. The “duty cycle” (ability to restore to full repeatability of a note) of an instrument is also important!
24 FPS:
www.filmindependent.org/blog/hacking-film-24-frames-per-second/
The human response time to a stimulus requiring a decision by the brain is 1/8 second. Response to a spark or a hot stove might be quicker!
Have u talk with Ruth she is still alive and was student of Isidor Phillipe
I haven't - but I did speak with 2d generation students who told me tempo and MMs were never an subject they talked about - neither they were pushed to extreme tempi.
@@AuthenticSound what impressed me was that I believe Isidor met the great pianist of that time I imagine he heard Allan, Liszt Rubenstein and still he was impressed by his Brazilian student Guiomar Novaes ..
I always wondered how should be played the famous octave glissando in the waldstein sonata in double beat. It looks like it is not a glissando anymore.
exactly!
@@addictbach4509 not really. I mean, you could be right but czerny doesn't say it's a glissando. He talks about 'slipped octaves', and the word 'glissando' was already used in czerny's period.
@@addictbach4509 ok you are right but i think it's not possible a glissando in double beat.
Argerich in Chopin's Prelude 16?
At 5:55 do you have the Adagio from Op.25 un C maj - Clementi in that edition - O please - O Please!!! I have a way to reckon it!!!
Drop me an email Tom, I have pretty all of Clementi here
Dank Je!
Thank you!!!!!!!!!! 😅
In the Czerny op433 #6 (at 20:11), what do you make of the metronome indication sixteenth = eighth = quarter note = 88 and how does it compare with the similar Clementi indications eighth = quarter = x which you relied on for your demonstration in another video?
compare notation, fastest note values etc
Would you please look into the works of Alkan? His tempi are... unusual.
yes, soon we'll have Wolfgang Weller play selections on this channel
@@AuthenticSound Thank you!!!
Question - do you think that the need in the 20th Century to fit music onto the short playing times of gramophone records has lead to higher tempi?
I don't
I'm not a musicologist or a musician, I just enjoy the classics. After hearing Beethoven 5th played faster than normal I can't listen to any slower version. I particularly enjoy the John Eliot Gardiner Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique version here on youtube.
You will be saved from Gardiner very quickly by just listen one week to our version here with Alberto. Just do the experiment and you'll see.
@@AuthenticSound you are not the Messiah, Wim! your performance is too slow to convey the emotions of the piece
The metrical tempo recording of chopin was infinitely better
23 notes a second constitutes a noise, not music. 11.5 notes a second is probably achievable and just about acceptable for fast pieces. Any music worth listening to needs to be played at a speed where every note can be savoured and enjoyed, and clearly the single beat theory hinders this at best and renders it impossible at worst. It is a shame that so much dubious or even incorrect information has been taught over the years, and still is, but slowly the truth will emerge victorious. The trouble is that it is difficult to overturn people’s long held beliefs and opinions that they were told by so called experts. I think we should embrace new ideas with an open and enquiring mind and see where it takes us.
I tried your challenge of 208BPM C major scale. I could play four, maybe seven notes at that speed... Hand separately.
Yes, a run of one bar of 15n/s is possible, but not much longer than that, and not much faster either. Czerny asks that speed once (in double beat) for a Beethoven sonata of which he especially wrote not to slow down in that bar, in single beat that would be 30 notes a second (actually a nice video title!)
I think LangLang holds the record for fastest scales. Do you know by any chance what that tempo might be?
Actually! I looked it up. 12.53 notes per second. For a Cmaj scale. Giving more credits to your facts.
unless you mean at any one time only one note, not chords and few notes at one time, it is possible. Look at Chopin's etude no 1 opus 25. There over 2300 notes and piece can be played in slightly over 2 minutes
.
would LOVE to hear that!
@@AuthenticSound here's two clips. Played on my Yamaha, recorded on my iPhone, so please excuse the quality.
ruclips.net/video/EQGj822CQnA/видео.html
ruclips.net/video/EWeHKh-FJo8/видео.html
One without sustaining pedal, so hopefully each note can be heard. I don't think the tempo is too fast, although I prefer a slower one. With 48 notes in a bar, each bar can be played in 2.5 secs making that 18 notes per second. Speeding up a little is still possible to challenge the 23 notes per second, but that defeats the purpose of the music.
@@johncheah8861 Its 10 notes a second, a little slower than most Czernies exercises, and a little slwoer than the speed indications of some sonatas.
@@classicgameplay10 how did you arrive at 10 notes per second?
What a sacrilegious boi
Not as bad as Ben Lee
Wim, i love you
Just for fun, some people are able to play very well at 15 notes a second , that’s pretty insane and exceptional even though what you stated seems totally legit. Look at this interpretation of “le chemin de fer” by Alkan : ruclips.net/video/m-U_CI2G9Ng/видео.html. He plays it at roughly 115 quarter notes a minutes =~ 15,2 notes a second!
15 notes a second.
If you can play it slow you can play it fast
Twoset should do a video of double speed
Daniel: I know from where that phrase comes out! Those two are a pair of "littl' bastards"... Specially because with a lot of funny concentrated acid they reveal how easy is to talk non sense things! As we say in my country: "as tongue has no bone"...
I'm sure you're aware of the gramophone records of Louis-Joseph Diémer, born in 1843, or St. Saens (born in 1835,) for that matter. They play at speeds that rivals any of the current virtuosos. Why would they and their teachers, born still earlier, (Marmontel, Diemer's teacher was born in 1816) promote that skill set if music was at half tempo?
Saint-Saens is a great example, he wrote in a Mozart edition (post 1900) that tempi had gone up so much that what for Mozart was a presto for the late 19th c. player only felt as an allegro. Why? Because tradition was not something to keep. And the bottom line here is not how fast musicians played around 1900, the question is: can you play 23 notes a second? If not, the modern reading of the metronome has a problem, since there are countless example of this. In fact you safely can say, there is not such thing as single or half beat metronome practice historically.
@@AuthenticSound Well, I'm not sure the Isidore Philippe is the way to go here. We know how fast pianists educated in the mid 19th century played because they recorded. It is documented and incontrovertible. If you know Diemer's tempo preferences and capabilities then you have a fair indicator of Marmontel's and Alkan's; hence Thalberg, Liszt and Chopin as well. Whereas St. Saens was born a half century after Mozart's death. He would have had no reliable objective source for knowing what Mozart thought a 'presto' tempo was. Just word of mouth.
208, a perfect speed to play Debussy's doctor Gradus ad parnassum
Have you ever done research whether those extreme high tempi were actually feasible considering the mechanical properties of piano's (of that period) ? If this is not possible, then you could prove your statement in a video of, let's say one minute.
Phillip played modern pianos...
Yes!
Sorry to burst your bubble, but Czerny's 15 notes per second are quite achievable. I myself manage around 16,5 near the end of Muffat's Passacaglia (ruclips.net/video/sCXNCTahpyA/видео.html) - if I can do it, more talented people than me shouldn't have any problems getting past that number. Granted, some of Philipp's indications seem excessive, but the overwhelming majority of his exercises are perfectly playable. Besides, what about the recordings of Philipp, where he very clearly and audibly does not play in half tempo?
yes, for a short passage, 16 is possible, not for minutes and minutes ongoing. It's simply not.
@@edwardyang8254 did you not see the link I provided?
I changed teachers when they asked for something stupid. Well, when they asked for about the tenth thing that was stupid. I've never been impressed with Philipp's ideas, his ideas on hand position are absurd and dangerous. I believe it was he who Dorothy Taubman was referring to when she emphatically pointed out "the keys are DOWN!"
@Marquis De Sade The point on which I believe Taubman criticized Phillip had nothing to do with metronome use, it had to do with hand position and movement. If, Wim is correct, and I believe he is about the use of metronome, Philip would have been only continuing with a use of the metronome which was common in the 19th century, every other point of his technique or some of them could have been flawed and that one thing could have been correct.
@Marquis De Sade Then you don't understand my point. I think fingering is such an individual thing that to follow any one person's fingerings is bound to result in hand problems later in life. I find Schenker's fingerings in his edition of Beethoven to be very congenial in most places and to work very well to articulate the structure of the music but I wouldn't follow many of his ideas. His ideas about the teaching of counterpoint are anachronistic and quite stupid in some general holdings. Dorothy Taubman's criticism of Phillip is spot on in regard to what she addressed, Wim's use of him to support his theory is spot on, as well. Wim has totally convinced me that he is right on that point, though, as with so many points of interpretation, it doesn't apply for all times for all composers.
@@anthonymccarthy4164 I have studied the Philipp method my entire life. My instructor was Harold Bradley, who studied with Philipp at the Paris Conservatory for several years and. became an associate professor who prepped the students on technical aspects before they went to Phillip. So I learned it almost straight from the horses mouth, so to speak. A friend of mine also had the same experience.
We have Both been performers and teachers, and we both have pretty good techniques, and many of our students (mostly my friends!) have become professional pianists and have extraordinary techniques.
We were taught to be always concerned about possible hand industries, and no student even had any problems with their hands. On the other hand, I know many pianists who did NOT study Philipp's methods have ruined their hands.
The heart of Philipp technique is to always play with a relaxed hand, arm and shoulder. Never practice to the point where you have any pain whatsoever. Never over practice in any case -- it isn't necessary and can be dangerous. Philipp based his hand position on what he learned from Mathias, who learned it from Chopin -- a totally natural and relaxed hand. Of course, a "natural" hand position may be different from one student to another -- there is no one position that fits all. That is the important thing.
It sounds like you had teachers who really didn't understand Philipp's approach to the hand and technique. BTW, Igor Stravinsky practiced Philiipp's exercises every day of his life.
as I said months ago: this is like a marvelous detective story: but the victims are the great composers and their legacies, brutalized by modern interpret/ers/-ations... you've peeled back the layers, your case seems unassailable... so let's soon have videos dealing specifically with the perpetrators, their motives, the historical contexts that prompted them to their 'crimes'!
Playing scales up to 16 notes per second is one of the skills a good pianist should have and it´s by far not the most difficult one.This 23 notes per second example Wim gives trains this skill.In double beat that would be 11,5 notes.So once again it´s a MM mark that only makes sense in double beat.
Cannot speak for you, but just found a contemporary source describing the most virtuosic speed of pianists (Tausig, von Bulow) measured during their performances, speed they reached in short passages: surprise surprise: 12 notes a second. Source 1888 (will bring it soon), as with 5 others earlier that describe the top speed of the most professional violonist as ... 10 notes/second. SO yes, it doesn't matter any more what 'a good pianist' can or writes to be able to play, we have contemporary sources describing what THEY back then could and could not do. Isn't that a great additional layer?
Great,looking forward too.
I just wrote 16 per second to appease our single-beat friends.I never played piano with a stop watch.
Música es interpretación no velocidad .
The older i get, the more your cited problems become would-be and non-issues. Eg a Hammerklavier played at the original Beethoven tempo by Möller is stressful and unpleasant, and becomes listenable and nice as played traditionally by the likes of Gulda and Arrau, to name only two. A real, genuine issue to discuss would be eg the lack of improvisational skills in 99,99999% of modern music schools and teachers and thus passing this ignorance down to future sheet music robots, aka concert pianists. Check out folks eg Jon England, Liberace, Carmen Cavallaro, Eddy Duchin, Beegie Adair, or Rick Wakeman, Elton John, poor Keith Emerson, Fats Domino etc... and be wise. Acquiring and teaching SUCH skills should be on modern piano teachers and students alike minds, THAT IS ART, IMHO. Suffice to watch so called masterclasses. Even the so-called maestros can't hack it, 99,99% totally lack these skills, so they hide in ivory towers behind a lot of BS. Before U cry blue murder and send out the lynch mob after me, let my point "THINK/SINK" IN.
why would I.... both? 😎
Mejor un arpegiador y asunto arreglado .
зашел только из-за якубовича на превью
What are you trying to do? Starting a religion?
by telling people 23 notes a second is impossible? Wow, some people are converted real quick :-)
@@lucho2868 This is the most ridiculous thing I have heard ever.
and you thought you could read music. muahahahahahaha
?
i can play 4 notes per tick with metronome at 208 only if i play in slow mo and with robotic arms hahah