I have decided that when a composer puts an impossible tempo on their piece, they are just telling you to play it as fast as you can (clearly) and dont over think it.
Sometimes I love to take shortcuts. In this case that means: listen to Beethoven playing his own pieces. Impossible? No! Carl Czerny was a composer, teacher and one of Beethoven's pupils. He knew how fast or slow to play his masters music for sure. Otherwise Mr. B. would have slapped him on the head or even worse. Franz Liszt was a pupil of Czerny and was known as a very strict teacher. We do have audio recordings from some of Liszt's pupils. E.g. Emil von Sauer playing LvB Op. 27 No. 2, a tiny bit faster than the average performance today, but well within the well known and generally accepted range. Or Frederik Lamond, who studied with Hans von Bülow (also a student of Franz Liszt), Clara Schumann and Franz Liszt. Lamond gave us recordings of LvB sonatas no. 8, 12 14, 17, 23, 57 and probably some more. All tempi meet modern standards. Double beat theory is not even a theory. It's a silly claim that those who know it quasi from the horse's mouth are all wrong. History confirms and complements Vlad's excellent thoughts.
Breaking news: Alberto's authentic performance of Beethoven's Hammerklavier which began last year has just reached the development section of the 1st mvt.
If you would like to talk directly, follow me on CLUBHOUSE, where I will be hosting classical music chats soon! 📌 TIMESTAMPS! 00:00 How Wim Winters changed human history via his genius double beat theory. 02:10 How Pianopat critiqued Wim Winters on his own terms. 2:52 Can you debate flat earthers? 04:10 Alfred Brendel and Isaiah Berlin 05:38 Why there is no such thing as 'tempo research' 06:45 The most basic thing Wim's theory misconceives about classical music 08:10 Artur Schnabel on interpretation 12:30 The period performance movement 15:40 Wim Winters on Hammerklavier Sonata tempo 19:20 Overruling a composer's tempo indications 21:28 Why do people like Wim Winters?
This stuff reminds me of that one Bach pianist a few years back who had come up with some "secret key" to understanding the exact tempo that Bach had in mind for every single piece based on his calculations of measure numbers and some sort of presumed symmetry that arises from that. It's all fun mind games I suppose but I'll play Bach how I feel the music needs to be played, not how some random guy's theory says it needs to be played.
In our somehow confusing times, it appears to me that many people like to believe truth has been stolen from them and they will cheer whoever claims to have it back.
Spot on! Apart from the fact wether Wim Winters tempi are "correct" or not, the only thing you hear in his interpretations IS tempo, or rather, his insane obsession with tempo. We all know Glenn Gould plays Bach too fast and Beethovens Appassionata too slow but at least there's something happening. Wim Winters interpretations are non-events so to speak, at best they have the ability to amuse someone who is already familiar with a particular work and by accident now and then emphasize a chord or melody that would escape the attention in "conventional" interpretations.
Dont agree. Besides his theory, he is a gifted performer nevertheless, I especially enjoyed the clementi works and the early beethoven sonatas he recorded. At least dont give your opinion on things you clearly don´t understand: musicality.
@@eintroll8792 educate myself? I didn't intend to upset your sensitive nature but since I did you can use it as a learning opportunity. First thing to learn is that music without a pulse is dead music.
Can you imagine a music teacher of the 19th century telling a student, "Now to determine the proper tempo, at the top of the page when you see quarter note equals 100, set the metronome at 100 and you will hear 100 ticks per minute. But remember, that is the speed of the eighth note, not the quarter note. The number will always refer to the speed of the note with half the time value of the note given on the score." The student laughs and says. "Why don't they just write eighth note equals 100?" The teacher then scolds the student for being impudent and gives him Hanon exercises to do for 3 hours. Seriously, shouldn't there be some kind of publication from the era for students, explaining such a counterintuitive way of documenting tempo?
Lots of interesting question to ask Wim!!!! I’m making a second, stronger, video on Wim in 2022! Again, it will be constructive beyond Wim- not just a take down.
If you are not a music student or anything, then I completely understand your thinking - I understand it anyway. Allow me to suggest a way of thinking about it. Think about a time signature's literal notation. When you see 4/4, you're not reeally seeing 4 quarter notes in a bar. You're seeing 4 overarching beats that, the majority of the time, gets subdivided into smaller note values. You learn to do this from the very beginning when you learn to play music. If this were not the case, then Fur Elise or Bach's keyboard invention in D minor would not be written in 3/8, but 6/16, which is technically a valid time signature, but makes it ironically kinda counterintuitive to read. If we learn to subdivide time signatures from the word go, then what is actually so weird about subdividing tempo markings? Just something to consider, have a good day!
@@andreasvandieaarde "Subdividing tempo markings" isn't relevant. If we subdivide tempo markings in the way you have done with the time signature that would mean changing "quarter note = 100" to "half note = 50". But that's just another way of stating the same tempo for the quarter note. "Quarter note = 100" means that the quarter note is assigned the number 100 on the scale of the metronome which is a beats per minute scale so there is no need to write 100 quarter notes "per minute". This is the same as giving a number of miles or kilometers in a reference to the speedometer. It is understood that the hour is the time interval of the speedometer. Interpreting the tempo designation otherwise (double or whole beat) is so counterintuitive (especially for students) that over the course of a century there would have to have been multiple unambiguous sources clarifying this, as well as sources possibly stating that the method of designation varied by composer, or sources documenting that the meaning of the designation had changed, whether publications or private correspondence. Such sources haven't been found. There are multiple sources describing the use of the metronome as above (single beat).
The root cause of Wim's 'cause celebre' (the double-beat theory) was the public ridicule he suffered at the hands of his conservatory piano teacher upon hearing Wim's slow rendition of Beethoven's opus 81a. Here is the link to Wims video: ruclips.net/video/tCFgNw_qqVQ/видео.html One can easily glean from Wim's monologue that he was an organ major and a piano minor. It is clear that he made no pretense to be a piano virtuoso. The teacher laughed at his slow interpretation, causing lasting psychological damage and resentment, as Wim reveals in the video. Thus, it became Wim's life mission to get back at the academy by dreaming up a means to prove that they - the great virtuosi, pedagogues, conductors, and instrumentalists - all play the great masterpieces of the 18th and 19th centuries twice as fast as the composers intended. In truth there is no record of any such performance history proving a gross discrepancy of tempo markings (the ones in words) then and now. Allegro is not and never was Andante, much less Adagio, and so forth. Wim's system has eliminated all fast playing entirely. And the slowest examples are excruciatingly painful to perform or listen to. The double beat theory that Wim champions has been thoroughly debunked countless times, so I won't go over that here (records of performance times by the composers alone destroys Wim's theory). But it is important to note that Wim's tempi are not simply his personal interpretation or preference, which we are all entitled to have. It is his explicit claim that his tempi are based on valid musicological research; that they are historically correct; and that they are authentically true to the intent of the composers. All of that is false. For that reason, one must cry foul. The artistic integrity of our greatest musical geniuses has been besmirched and dragged through the mud. It is nothing less than a libel against composers who cannot rise from the grave to set him straight. It is also a deliberate slap at our great virtuosi who now have been proven to have committed gross musical errors. Now, thanks to Wim Winters, music has been saved from the charlatans. In reality, all of this has been done for the benefit of one person: Wim Winters. The purpose is to slow everything down, not just a little, but drastically, to make it easier for him to play -- and to achieve lasting revenge against the piano teacher who mocked him for his ludicrous interpretation of op. 81a.
The drivers behind Wim Winters cult like approach are very clear indeed. On the other hand, I have always wondered what could be the rationale behind Lorenz Gadient appetite to publish a book and encourage Wim do convince naive people via social media. At the end of the day, he didn't invent a theory , he just revamped Talsma old theory which was debunked in the eighties, trying to put lipstick on the pig. The only rationale I could find is some attraction for religious esotericism of some sort . I would be interested to have Vlad's option on the subject.
@@Esmer-tp1mh It doesn't matter whether Wim dreamed it up or borrowed it from someone else. The fact remains that Wim was driven for psychological reasons to interfere with history and rewrite it according to his needs. That is both deranged and criminal. It is not surprising that the 'movement' has devolved into a cult; that's the icing on the cake.
Some things to keep in mind: The tempo on Hammerklavierronate is not necessarily impossible. There have been some recent attempts that got quite close and much cleaner than Schnabel’s first try. But also: A Beethoven time piano is a completely different thing. Modern pianos are built for volume and a big tone. Early piano music instead used speed. For example on an earlier piano you had to depress the key much less to trigger the action, which means you could not get as much acceleration, but you could play quite fast. Then also: This sonata’s tempo has been discussed as extremely fast from the very beginning, with only Czerny claiming it was very fast, but possible an necesary for the character, while only a bit later the general consense would be that this was too fast. Note that this is also the time when pianos evolved a lot, and when thus the modern image of Beethoven as a monumental composer (rather than a revolutionary) come up, and everything was slowed down and played more grand.
@@gammypage That is correct for fast repetition of the same note (it essentially means that the key does not have to fall back fully to be able to trigger the hammer again, allowing for repetition with less key movement (although having a lower action height does also help with that one)). But please elaborate how the heck double escapement is going to help you play say a scale faster?
Please see Wim Winters' last video : SHOCKING stats on Beethoven's Hammerklavier sonata ruclips.net/video/qqxluubosZM/видео.html. At 3:14 he says that the tempo set by Czerny in his Opus 299 are impossible to play. So he implies that Czerny's metronome indications was double beat. But at 7:50 he quotes that Czerny said that Beethoven's tempo for his sonata is too fast and difficult to achieve. So it means that Czerny took Beethoven's metronome marking as single beat. This is completely incoherent!
You do not understand-when an idea is so absurd as to be beneath contempt, sometimes sarcasm and ridicule are the best ways to combat it. The bottom line is that “whole-beat” performances sound like bloody Hell. The fact that they are completely unsupported by historical evidence is almost beside the point. Metronome numbers are inherently suspect on general principles, as any true musician will testify. Vlad Vexler is absolutely correct.
Even supposing for a moment that the textual evidence is equivocal on the double-beat theory, there is a problem. It is not a coincidence that a 'moderato' tempo corresponds to about 60 beats per minute, which is also about the rate of the human heartbeat, and theorists have recognized this in relation to the notion of the 'tactus'. 'Allegro' sounds fast, not because it is “absolutely” fast, but because it is fast in relation to a moderate, or comfortable, tempo. And the same consideration applies to 'adagio'. Which is to say that these tempos are not arbitrary or a matter of convention, but of human physiology. Winters' tempos sound absurdly slow because they really are too slow. That is, unless Winters wants to argue that people in the nineteenth-century were biologically different from us.
Also there is a very strong link between music and language. Language does naturally imply melody, tempo and rhythm, and in the past composers were not only aware of this, but actively combining music with rhethorics. Thus you get music with a certain declamatory, speaking quality. This matters particularly with vocal music, where of course the music and the language would optimally work together rather than against themselves. Take for example Schuberts Erlkönig - at notated speed the language feels really natural. At half speed - well, it is essentially like speaking really really slowly.
@@TheVoitel Excellent point. Someone has also remarked that Beethoven's vocal works are difficult enough to perform already, but when slowed down breathing becomes a problem.
@@TheGloryofMusic Breathing ... well, there is a lot possible, and with baroque music we are totally used to coloratura lines so long that you simply cannot do it in one breath. But imagine things like the 13 bar suspended high a in the choir soprano in the 9th symphony. Take that at half time, and you’re killing them.
@@TheVoitel I'm not familiar with breath technique in singing. But imagine trying to perform the Sanctus/Benedictus from Beethoven's Missa Solemnis at half-tempo.
The majority of people find classical music difficult to understand, which is why "Classical Relaxation" compilations (full of slow tempos) are so popular. People who like Wim's slushy romantic re-interpretations (which is basically what they are) are likely never going to appreciate piano music at its intended tempo, unless it's composed by Ludovic Enaudi and/or performed on an iceberg.
My question to Wim was, ‘at which point did composers start using the metronome in the way we have always used it?’ I have just recorded the Piano Sonata from Frank Bridge and the recording of Myra Hess with Bridge’s approval, proves his metronome markings as accurate. So where did the reading of metronome markings become what we understand them to be? No answer!
Congratulations on the recording! Wonderful you have recorded Bridge’s Piano sonata. Ha ha what do you think is Wim’s best evasion tactic to your question?
In fact this only question kills the theory . As a matter of fact , there must have been a genesis, in other words , a first score written with single beat intention .Assuming double beat was the norm , the author or editor would have without a doubt added a comment or instructions telling how to interpret the metronome markings in a way which was radically different . The paradox doesn’t apply to one particular scores but to all scores written in the same period . Good luck to anyone trying to find it 😄, you may have more chances to find life on Mars .
I listened to a very good interview of Conductor Riccardo Chailly talking about the tempo of the 1st movement of Beethoven 5th Symphony . The video is called 'Riccardo Chailly - Beethoven Symphonies 4-6 (interview) The very interesting tempo narrative starts at 2:58 Video watch?v=dml0Q-lIrPo His performance of the symphony can be found here watch?v=S5K3cScsYLg
Someone remarked that the bird calls in Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony don't sound like the actual thing, given Winter's tempo ruclips.net/video/qV-N3Luf9mE/видео.htmlsi=HOLggZCPY3ndw3K7 Thomas Huxley referred to "the slaying of a beautiful theory by an ugly fact".
This is one of those videos that justifies the existence of RUclips-an absolutely brilliant exposition with more philosophical implications than you can shake a stick at. Thank you!
Dear Dan, I hope you are keeping safe. I am still learning this platform and I plan to share a great deal more about music. I value your time and generosity of attention very much. Thank you. I plan to make time to listen to your work - happy to be guided by you about where I should go first.
@@VladVexler Dear Vlad, I am honored and flattered by your kind words. Concerning my compositions, may I suggest the following as starters: Fantasia in G Major for Harpsichord or Fortepiano, etc. (2018), ruclips.net/video/pdSO5pedtc0/видео.html Sonata in G Major for Violin or Oboe and Harpsichord or Fortepiano (1994, 2009), ruclips.net/video/lkzRXSveLSw/видео.html String Quartet in D Minor, in memoriam Otto Luening (1996); recorded live performance, ruclips.net/video/TWGaqovN3Mk/видео.html Sonata in G Major, in one movement, for harpsichord of fortepiano (2018) ruclips.net/video/BV_7YmYuul4/видео.html Quartet inD Major for Flute, Violin, Viola, and Cello (2015) ruclips.net/video/WaXlCwLfV4Y/видео.html Symphony for Strings in F major (2008) ruclips.net/video/cjdRCx3YCSA/видео.html Concerto in D Minor for Harpsichord of Fortepiano and Strings (2009) ruclips.net/video/eQSzsuuI8E8/видео.html Sonata in D Minor for Flute and Harpsichord or Fortepiano (1994) ruclips.net/video/M-LItX10LAM/видео.html Trio Sonata in B major for Flute or Violin, Oboe d’Amore or Violin, and Basso Continuo (1997) ruclips.net/video/N67Pr-gzqAQ/видео.html Pavan in G Minor in memoriam Bernard Krainis ruclips.net/video/y_H7QwkBLk8/видео.html I look forward to studying your RUclips postings. With best wishes, Dan
@@danielwaitzman2118 Dear Dan thank you so much for guiding me so generously. I may take my time listening through, but I will listen with great concentration. Hope you are doing OK. Talk soon! Vlad
Sadly RUclips has become the place for ad-hominem attacks, rather than of empirical discussion. As Vlad's video shows. 100% of the useful remarks in this video could have been made without resorting to such ad-hominem attacks. Social media has become a vehicle for the worst traits of human nature, unfortunately, and sophisticated musicians aren't free from those traits.
@@lindasegerious9248 Obviously you have no idea of how utterly poisonous and destructive to musical excellence Wim Winters’ theories really are. I fear that you are closed to any exploration of their destructiveness, of which you will find several on RUclips-notably this video by Vlad Vexler. Far from engaging in “ad hominem attacks,” Mr. Vexler has actually been the soul of politesse in his treatment of this matter. Winters is guilty of lies, distortions, and personal invective; the number of present-day musicians of superb attainment whom he has insulted is almost too numerous to count. His teachings are an affront to all who have devoted their lives to Music. At the same time, his own playing is dull past description; he bans those with whom he disagrees from his channel, as well as those who offer evidence disproving his “theories.” He continues to mislead well-intentioned music-lovers, and thus to strike blow after blow at the very fabric off musical culture itself. Do you wonder why Winters’ critics tend to be up in arms about his mendacious preachings? Incidentally, if you peruse his most recent videos, you get a picture of a man who seems on the verge of a nervous breakdown-not a pretty picture. I do not know what, if any, are your musical qualifications to hold forth on the subject of Wim Winters; but I hope, for your sake, that you may eventually recognize him for what he is-a scam artist and a fraud.
Great video! Very timely as today we were blessed to hear the results of Wim's greatest proponent's ground-breaking research in his presenting us with Old Man Tempest, authentically reconstructed with his long-forgotten broken leg...not what I expected from a storm of such violent intensity but then again the forces of nature were much different back then, on account of climate change and all...
I think even deeper research would have yielded an ever longer 31 no 2. Perhaps one played over several days - with players taking turns to allow for sleep! I actually think a video like that would go viral! Thank you so much for watching and commenting.
@@benjaminachron1493 😂 I heard they have been recording Beethoven’s 9th symphony since three months straight and those who made all those videos in the meantime were just lookalikes.. 😅
Another question: how divorced are we from Beethoven - can't we trace direct lines of teaching from Beethoven to day? Could our understanding of tempi be so far off, given the pedigree?
Yes we can . Most famous pupil from Beethoven was Czerny . Most famous pupil from Czerny was Liszt and we have a lot of piano rolls recordings from Liszt pupils , all of them being on RUclips . All piano rolls are in traditional single beat, most of the time faster than what we hear today ( the idea that music accelerated in the 20th century is a pure invention) , which gives you a very strong indication that double beat is a pure fantasy built on sand .
When the war is over I will make a video explaining why we couldn’t be as far off as Wim thinks. Not that we aren’t, but that we couldn’t be. In other words, that Wim’s conspiracy is incompatible with the existence of music as an art form. Which makes his conspiracy useful to talk about.
This morning I started to write a comment on your video to tell you that you are just brilliant, and you are absolutely right!!!..since I wrote it in double bit...., I only reached the end of my comment that day next at dawn.
I don't know you Vlad Vexler ... but this goes reallyyyyyyy deep ... it's at such a high level of spirituality, philosophy and musicology that I even think that some people will not understand what you're saying... but of course very well done ... I congratulates you with making this video , one full of deep and interesting thoughts... I also like your humor... this is a video you need to see multiple times to really get it ... very nice
What a kind comment. Thanks so much! Hoping you are safe at this time and regarding a couple of your recent videos - do know that your English delivery is absolutely fantastic !
Finally someone making a Video about it! For me Wim is just an conspiracy theorist. There are so many things that proof him wrong... I asked him why Beethovens hammerklavier was said to be impossible to play until liszt played it. According to wim all pianist were too bad to play thaz piece at only half the tempo we play it today. Hillarious. He never answered this question And another question I asked and never got explained... why all people forgot how metronomes work? Why did EVERYONE in the world played everything twice as fast? There is no answer because they always played fast. He is just crazy and I feel bad for all the People who believe him
Thanks so much for taking time and for your comment! I couldn't agree more. I didn't think of this video as a debunking - I'm rather exploring how things go right and how they go wrong when we engage with music. Does that make sense?
Hi Vlad, Bravo for the video and happy new year! You added quite a few interesting points to the discussion on the widely debunked double beat theory, or _whole beat practice_ , as Wim likes to call it. May I add a couple of considerations? First, we will never be able to “reproduce” anything from the past for the simple reason that the listeners themselves are not the same. We could even have Beethoven explaining exactly how to play every aspect of a piece in an irrefutable way, and still these two centuries between him and us will make the experience unreconstructable. Second, since one of the pillars of this pseudo theory is the misreading of Mersenne’s prescription of the falsely called _double second_ , then the double beat should actually be doubled again. Quadruple beat is the exact description of Gadient’s/Wim’s nonsense. Quarter note = 80 (beats per minute) would mean Quarter note = 40 (beats per minute), but since 1 minute = 2 minutes, the final result is actually Quarter note = 20! Not only that! Since the frequency of the notes is counted by putting in relation vibrations with time, even the height of the notes should be doubled! Quadruple beat and an octave higher! This would actually be the most consistent way of applying Wim’s rules (and Gadient’s etc. etc.). Maybe you could do an experiment by playing an Adagio four times slower and an octave higher. Just to feel what a true “tempo reconstruction” would sound like 😅
Happy New Year Vito! Thanks so much for your time and thoughts. Your first thought is very important and it's something I will discuss in a separate video. How is the musical imagination of 2020 different to the musical imagination of 1818? We are human beings who have heard and experienced things which our ancestors did not. This is a big conversation in Opera, but it is rarely discussed well in absolute music. Ironically, some of the most limited discussions of this have occurred in the period performance world.
Interesting approach to the subject and fundamentally good points. You make the same point as I do in my rant on the same subject about the extraordinarily ‘fast’ existences of most of the composers being discussed, giving the lie to the ’relaxed slow old times’ romanticised view of the past of which Double Beat Theory seems to me to be just another example.
Hello dear David. Thank you for your words and I hope you are safe at this time. I think your excellent video approached the subject more directly, whereas this one is more indirect, perhaps using Wim as a conversation starter. Warm wishes!
@@VladVexler Best wishes to you, too. Yes, mine is more direct, but there is now a wide range of video responses to Wim, that range from the comic to the profound. I do like your comparison with 'bishop research' - pointing out the fundamental absurdity of Wim's invention of a field of 'tempo research'.
Good to have a platform to offer alternative views to on this interesting topic, ( I’m shadow banned on A.S. Channel as are many others who have contributed alternative views). I think some essential points need to be emphasised here. The metronome is the ‘holy grail’ for A.S. Performances which is interpreted contrary to Maelzel’s own instructions I.e 2 ticks of the metronome represents 1 beat of the music according to their theory, not each tick as Maelzel clearly explains. This is the basis of the whole A.S. ‘Research ‘. This means the number of the note value given will be halved in the M.M. Also the use of the sustain pedal, unless marked, is considered ‘taboo’ even though we know Beethoven used the pedal far more than he indicated (Czerny). We can analyse all of these technicalities but what should be the guiding factor is what we hear &, like all exceptional creative works there is a ‘mystical’ element indescribable in words. In music I would say this is communicated through structured emotional spontaneity . Clementi stated that when Beethoven’s playing became rough through his deafness he nevertheless always played with spirit. This is the essence of music & is unfortunately missing on the A. S. Channel which has reduced great works of art to a pedantic, academic exercise.
Thank you for visiting this channel and for your comment. I am sorry you have been shadow banned by Wim - although perhaps you feel you are not missing out on much anyway! As you can tell from this video, I am not worried about Wim brainwashing innocent music lovers, but I am keen that we make sense of our musical world in all its absurdity! Hope you are safe and well at this time.
How would you reconcile your idea of the piece over-determining the performance, with something like Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, where the performance came before the piece and therefore could not have been determined by it at all?
In his correspondence with the performers who were preparing for the London premiere of the Ninth symphony, Beethoven stated that the duration of the work should not exceed forty-five minutes. Even if the metronome marks are followed and repeats in the scherzo are ignored, a performance of this work would last far longer than three quarters of an hour. Following Mr Winters' hypothesis, the Ninth symphony would last between two-and-a-half and three hours, thus contradicting Beethoven's express instructions.
Well as you sense from the video, I don't think feel a huge need to get involved in disproving Wim's claims directly, and in so far as we do get involved in that, I think the scores themselves are enough. Together with the idea that tempo can't be severed from other properties of a piece!
To add to my last comment I have just discovered that a loyal follower of ‘authentic sound ‘ channel has suggested to Daniel Barenboim, on his channel, that he might learn something about Beethoven sonatas from Wim Winters ! The absolutely deluded world that these ‘authentic sound cult followers’ are living in is unbelievable as is their false sense of importance . The ridiculesness of this comment can be found on :- ‘Daniel Barenboim & Giuseppe Mentuccia on Beethoven ‘s piano sonatas’. (2/4). ( It also suggested on 1/4). Who do these A.S cult followers think they are ? To professional musicians, like myself, they are ‘Ein Musikalischer Spass’.
You know, this is just the beginning. Wim is early. There will increasingly be a world of ‘alternative facts’ in professional classical music. That’s one of several trends I anticipate now till 2050. But optimistically, I think that while these fractures will grow, they will only have limited success at corrupting the work that really matters.
The passage of time only increases one’s appreciation of Vlad Vexler’s genius. This video is a great put-down of a world-historical charlatan, comparable to Quantz’s put-down of von Moldenit.
This is a really good video , as you are debunking Wim Winters fantasy world , with powerful arguments from a different angle. Wim Winters has constructed a sort of ecosystem which has built-in defence mechanisms against refutation. Concert timings ? Wim refers to what he call's Mersenne second which , according to him, is equal to 2 seconds (the fact that this 'metrical' second never existed is irrelevant, as he uses a dialectic tactic to defend a lie with another lie) . Does that sound musical in double beat ? Wim argues he has 35 k adepts. etc... the list is endless You brilliantly present another perspective and I think your analogy regarding the fact that tempo research doesn't exist is absolutely spot on. To use a quote from Einstein, I would say that Wim Winters is proposing a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. The fact that 0,0000000001% of metronome markings are impossible to play if you want to play all bars of a score rigorously ( which musically is a heresy) is not a problem related to the 19th century. The same proportion of unplayability exists nowadays with modern composers. You call Wim's movement a cult and you are right, many people consider it as a sect but etymologically, the cult denomination is more appropriate, with all the negative connotations associated with the term. Once again, thank you for a very refreshing and well done argumentation. We are sick and tired of all the fake news and the Wim's alike of our time.
Thanks so much for your time and your words - I'm worried about our public life becoming untethered to facts but I'm less concerned about that in art music. You know, the argument you have with Wim's view is an argument you are winning resoundingly. By much the kind of margin you quote above! I was considering doing a direct demolition of Wim's argument, but then reflected that Pianopat had done a terrific job, and felt no need to eviscerate Wim!
Apart from the fact that I agree with many of your remarks in this video: I know quite a lot of period performance musicians. But there is not one who says that research is sufficient for a performance. Off course they all lay great value on interpretation as well. And off course did the composers reckon with the instruments of the day. The bass-thrills of Schuberts B flat pianosonata D960 make much more sense on a Graff from the 1820’s than on a modern Steinway for instance and there are many more examples. But apart from that it’s allways nice to hear an intelligent person talking about music. Thank you for that. Regards, Theo
One of the things that pleases me the most is how far period practice and conventional practice have come to cooperate and merge. And absolutely, we have to recognise is that a tempo decision is always a decision that FOLLOWS from our view of the significant characteristics of the work. Not the other way round!!!
But why would a composer write down a speed that's just undoable? Of course you don't have to follow it precisely but why would Beethoven ever give a MM that is so far out of range? I just don't get it.
It’s at least 15% out of range IMO. I think that 95% of the time Beethoven gets it right. Here he is off, but the score gives us so much other information about how to proceed that we can, on this rare occasion, overrule him. But again, playing the piece at full tempo would be IMO less bad than playing it at half tempo. In a letter Beethoven expressed the wish to change allegro assai or assai allegro to plain allegro. These pieces were written disturbingly quickly compared with how great writers worked for instance.
Do you mean undoable or not pleasant to listen to ? The majority of Beethoven has been more or less played at indicated tempo ( Kolnisch quartet or Schnabel sonatas for instance) . The only exception is the Hammerklavier if you want to strictly follow the score , but this is a rare exception. It is worth noting that same applies to some modern composers who have proposed impossible metronome marks , it is not specific to that period.
@@philedet9827 I think it is not doable while also doing everything else Beethoven asks. But it is certainly possible to play through the notes at that tempo.
@@VladVexler Do you mean there are conflicting indications ? I would't disagree at all . If I remember Rudolf Kolisch talks about that in his famous book. Interestingly to prove your point, a Toronto quartet (Eybler quartet) has recorded Op 18 under the direction of Eugene Lenher who happened to be a violinist of the Kolisch Quartet. They chose 3 pieces of op 18 because of their controversial metronome markings. They wanted to demonstrate that it is playable but not that nice. Kolisch said that also. There is a quote from him in his book which seems to be addressed directly to Wim's alike : "Opponents of the metronome will even go so far as to make the unbelievably nonsensical assertion that our modern metronome differs considerably from Beethoven, That could be true only if the speed of the earth's rotation had changed in the meantime "
@@philedet9827 I love your referring to Kolisch. Yes, I think the propulsive energy the character of the piece requires is incompatible on a modern piano with a speed of above 120, if not 110. If we just look at the opening bars.
@vladvexler this may be a rather unsophisticated criticism to Winters' theory, but how am I supposed to play on the violin the beethoven concerto in double beat theory. Did they have bows double the length back then? Are we also supposed to play Mozart's 4th concerto at half speed (that would make my college audition significantly easier)? Cheers mate I hope you are having a good holiday.
You touch the biggest issue related to this theory which is how to deal with slow movement as it simply doesn't work at all. Not sure which Beethoven's concerto you are referring to , but for instance if you play the 5th version Zimmerman you set the settings at 0.5 and watch/listen from 2:07 onwards you can see the first violin playing realise that the bow would be impossible , not even mentioning the piano melody which becomes unreal. Link to 5th by Zimmerman ruclips.net/video/cd9rg9v25bo/видео.html
@@ChristianJoannes I meant the Beethoven Violin concerto op.61 where the soloist has particularly challenging long bow slurred notes which would be impossible at half tempo. In any case I thank you for your recommendation of Zimmerman's performance.
@@benjaminachron1493 I'm honestly surprised Winters literally hasn't brought his "theory" beyond the piano. The technique for violin, voice, and basically any wind instrument can alone invalidate the theory overall. Mozart arias at half tempo need an oxygen tank to happen smh...
The funny thing in this debate is, No body cares about musicality, every body brags about speeds and numbers but no body makes a comparsion or even how the frase works
I am not a fan of Wim Winters, far from that , but to be abruptly honest, you are as credible as an 'academic philosopher' as he is as a 'musicologist'. In the social media world , anyone who loves good food can pretend to be a 3 star Michelin chef.
Hi Eleonore, I’m currently writing a book about Isaiah Berlin. My postgrad studies were at Oxford and UEA. My PhD research was in political philosophy. I never completed the PhD due to health issues - I got a neurological condition and for several years couldn’t walk or talk or read. Now I am able to work and consult part time and I am grateful to be recognised in a fairly narrow circle in academic philosophy. I agree about your concern about the internet. At the same time, I do also think some content can speak for itself.
Here's an interesting paper explaining Beethoven's sometimes weirdly fast metronome markings: "Conductors’ tempo choices shed light over Beethoven’s metronome", Almudena Martin-Castro, Iñaki Ucar, published Dec. 16th 2020. It's published online, easily found by googling the title, and neither long nor heavy.
.....making sense of EVERY part of the piece , great music is multidimensional and we have to descover ( also as listeners!) its deepest meaning : right! Music is based on mind, on spirit , on heart not on metronome of Malzel only!
Thank you for putting out your opinion! Your approach really spoke to me as a performer and composer. I find it, unfortunately, very true that despite the most exciting conceptions of a piece or a performance of a work, the real genius of a performer is to convey what is possible as if it the finest conception of music there can be. I discovered Wim Winters pretty soon after he started his videos focusing on 'tempo reconstruction' and I found he appealed to me affinity for the novel. Call it irony, but soon after I discovered Wim's content I, tangentially came upon some audio of Satie's 1st Gymnopedie but it had been slowed down to last upwards of 20 minutes! The piece was unrecognizable but I appreciate and find infinitely fascinating the difference of sound the same notation can illicit. From an interpretive standpoint, I still feel as though Winters is merely bringing out side of pieces (or at least their notation) by Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Chopin and others (ofcourse with some extreme adjustments). As you pointed out, the real debate is in the question of what was originally intended by the composers of a broad time period and Winters is pushing his theory as a definitive conclusion in ways that feel dogmatic. One could say this is a matter of fighting for representation for his ideas but, I get the sense that if the whole world of classical music was to convert to 'Whole Beat' it would become politically incorrect to conceive of music as we do now and I that that very unsettling. I often feel a devaluing of modern interpretation from his content and a presumption of his conceptions of pieces as superior. If I hadn't grown out of that sort of thinking about my and other people's music I would be a much less healthy person. That being said, I do have to say that having looked at the tempi in Cezerny's studies, I have to admit they are indicated at inhumane speeds- not just to perform but even to hear. Maybe I read the tempi wrong. But Wim Winters' video critiquing Valentina Lisitsa's tempi choices in the finale of Beethoven's 'Moonlight Sonata' he brings up a very interesting example which does make me question the nature of what was written. It does leaves me questioning my existence and maybe I relish that a little.😅😜
Hello Artur, thanks for engaging and sharing your thoughts. I've a few videos planned and one of them is on the so called Moonlight - I'm sure we can discuss that movement then. For me, a tempo decision is always a by product of taking on board everything else going on in the score. I'm rather against isolating tempo and discussing it in abstraction from all the other things the composer asks in the score. Hope you are keeping well.
The whole premise lies on the romantic fantasy that composers perfectly envision the entire composition as is. Composing is much more about the interaction between the composer and the players and the audience. Isn’t it strange that all these geniuses wrote their perfectly imagined compositions according to the cultural trends of that particular time? Just a coincidence that the Goldberg Variations seem to be written for a virtuoso keyboard player and the Art of Fugue for intellectualism? Or could it be that Bach changed his writing style according to the needs of the player/audience? I don’t think it is a hierarchy of composer > audience. I think it is more of an interaction, the audience influences the composer and the composer influences the audience. Even if music was played twice as slow back in the day it isn’t now, most people prefer fast angry Beethoven and thus it would be extremely unlikely Beethoven wouldn’t accommodate to that cultural want if he would be here today. Music is not a painting or sculpture. That is the whole beauty of it. It is unstable, always changing to reflect the current cultural mood.
Lovely to see you again and thanks so much for you thought. There is one important point I don’t quite share with you - and that’s that great composers respond to cultural trends. I think the explanation for what Mozart and Beethoven do is always directly musical. What they are responding to are not cultural trends but the evolutions in musical language that occurred before them. Strongly my view. Hope you are safe at this time and musically fulfilled!
@@VladVexler That is interesting. To me it seems obvious that composers respond to cultural trends but I am aware I haven’t thought about this nearly as much as you have. For instance your views on Glenn Gould were a real “mindblower”. I had never even considered the possibility of thinking about players and how they interpret music like that. But isn’t it the case that even if a composer tries to progress the musical language they still have to respond to the current cultural trends in some way or another? Bach even though he revered the old composers of his time responded to modern cultural trends like rococo in his music. Schoenberg innovated tonality but at the time it was the cultural trend to vehemently rebel against the old traditions. Even though they try to push the boundaries they are contained by the frame of time which dictates some form of cultural character. Thanks for the videos and taking the time to respond.
@@LesterBrunt so I think that if we talked of an interaction between cultural trends and the work the great classical composers at all, the causal arrow in the first instance would go from the composer to the culture and not the other way round. An idea like ‘rebelling against what comes before’ is too vague IMO to be an explanation of any kind. Moreover what the post Mahler composers did was not a rebellion against the old musical language but its logical elaboration. Just like Beethoven and Schubert exhausted the classical style, so Mahler exhausted tonality. Their successors didn’t reject them, they just inherited languages that had eaten themselves up. You don’t need to think all of this of course, but i should mention I am not saying anything original or anything that’s not thought by a solid number of classical musicians and musicologists. - I know it can seem a bit counter intuitive to think that to explain music we need to look at music, but I think it’s true. At the same time it is certainly not true in blues or in folk music.
@@VladVexler Thanks that is certainly interesting. Do you have any tips for good literature on this? I am thinking of studying musicology next year so it can’t hurt to lay some groundwork.
@@LesterBrunt There is one famous essay worth looking at - it's by Charles Rosen and called 'The Irrelevance of Serious Music". It appears in his book Critical Entertainments. Sadly there isn't a direct essay link as the version that appears in the book is an integration of a couple of essays he wrote for various publications. There are people who criticise Rosen as a critic and as a player, but he has universal assent as an outstanding writer on music.
You are absolutely right that it is useless to 'disprove' WW's 'theory'. In fact, the idea is already more than 50 years old, and has been refuted time and again (most convincingly by Klaus Miehling), but it just keeps popping up. Apart from what you mentioned about the 11% Mozart-effect, there are many more reasons for people to find this idea attractive. For instance, it brings the great classical masterpieces within the reach of amateur players. Of course they wouldn't need the justification of WW to enjoy playing their Beethoven in half tempo, but now they can do so while entertaining the illusion that they are playing the piece 'as the composer intended it'. In addition, it has all the attraction of a conspiracy theory. It is also a safe haven for people who like to take musical notation literally. As some metronome markings seem to be impossible, and composers are infallible gods, there must be a secret code that must be applied. Finally, tempo theories are usually brought forward by organ players, and I think that's not a coincidence, as they are used to slow tempi anyway. Love your channel BTW although I have to admit that I sometimes play your videos at double speed when I'm a bit in a hurry :-)
I look forward to talking more about on the new music channel - currently there are no videos on it. Thank you so so much for your great comment. I was thinking of giving Wim as a cultural phenomenon another pop! My warm wishes to you.
good video. marc andre hamelin plays the opening note of the hammerklavier with crossed hands, sounds much smoother that way. he repeats that any time the motif with the jump shows up.
I look forward to sharing that episode I have been intending to make - on the opening jump. Hopefully we will discuss all the options more fully then!!!
The number of slowed down musical recordings now available on You Tube Is surprising. I Recall when learning peices by ear one used to play records at 16 RPM which resulted in half tempo and a lowering of pitch by one octave. Yet after a while the brain decodes the pitches and transforms chords and cadenzas back into a musical form almost as though percieving a non existant future sound.
Great video with a very musical approach instead of Winters petty, uninspired approach to the scores of the great classical composers. I like the cynical remarks to his playing and that of his smartest-boy-in-class buddy Alberto. Winters is a cult leader who leaves no room for other opinions. The funny thing is that he masks this by trying to come across as a funny guy who always emphasizes at the beginning of a video how much he respects the opponent at the moment, but then shows the opposite. Watch how he treated the sympathetic pianopat guy who, in his naivety, thought he could engage in a very respectful exchange of arguments. He ended up being blocked twice by "Mr. Authentic".
I cannot agree more with you. Wim Winters would like to make people think he is a nice guy , taking occasionally pictures with his family and dog , but this is very artificial as it doesn’t take long to realise he is a complete douche bag who keeps denying the evidence . He is trapped in his own lies and is loosing progressively audience and respect . In my eyes , it’s done and dusted , we had Talsma in the 80’s , Cobra in the 2000’s and now Winters , they didn’t stand and won’t stand a chance as historical tempo are not based on opinion but on facts and facts prove them wrong . Moreover tempo is just a parameter, amongst others that talented interpreters tend to respect or not. Funny thing is that interpreters that Wim Winters is fund of , such G.Gould are the ones who had the most flexible approach to tempo , sometimes faster than indicated ( Beethoven 3rd movement op 27/2) sometimes slower ( Brahms famous concerto with Berstein) in Gould’s case.
@@mktsound8240 Yes, his fondness of Gould surprised me too, and his own interpretation of Bach's Passacaglia (of course there are no metronome markings but in my opinion it is pretty fast! I guess the double beat tempo taste lasted about half a century during the Viennese School composer period :) )
Thanks so much. I'm planning a new video on Wim with a quite different argument! I'll argue that if an argument like Wim's had a chance of being right, no art tradition could persist across time. Of course it won't be a video of objections to Wim, but a video about how humans access the meaning of a work of art!!
@@VladVexler I will be looking forward to your new episode. The other thing I would like to say about Wim Winters is that I find it amazing how little faith he has in great performing musicians to deal with the many cues in the score, including the ways other than the metronome's to determine a composition's tempo. I do not believe that in just a few centuries men changed radically in feeling, taste, and conception of all aspects of life, as the great writers of the past show in their novels when they describe those of their contemporaries; this also applies, in my opinion, to the performing artist's recreating art. The performance of an 'Adagio con molta espressione' or a 'Allegro molto e vivace', in combination with an estimate that the indications other than tempo indications can be given sufficient space within the structure of the music, will not differ fundamentally of someone living around 1822 from someone living in the present day.
@@theophicen7850 very true . And if you take the pastorale symphony for instance the original manuscript names the various birds intended to be imitated by the instruments . As I am aware nature sounds were similar in that time , or maybe I missed something ;)
Disclaimer: I haven’t watched your whole video yet. But there was one large point you make which is so in line with my point of view that I felt the need to raise a glass in toast! Namely, that a piece of Western art music* is not an concrete object like a marble statue**: it is not a ‘thing’ with properties which can be discovered through perception and reason. Rather, a piece of music is an act of communication, and hence does not exist outside of interpretation. [*Possibly some of these qualifiers can be removed and the point would still hold.] [**It could be debated whether a marble statue has the epistemological status I’ve given it here, but I needed a contrasting example.] The ‘thing’ Wim focuses on (as do many musicians!) is the analogue of what in speech we could call an ‘utterance’ : a collection of speech sounds and inflections, if you like. Wim also wishes to take some of the context of the utterance into account: hypothetical social and musical contextual meaning, and so forth. So, in musical terms, we are talking about the score (a finite list of symbols), combined with a theory of performance practice and affective associations. That’s a fine thing to focus on; it just ain’t music. At best it’s a limited form of music history or musicology. An analogy would be: we’re sitting at a coffee shop. You say something; I’ve recorded it on my phone. I leave without saying a word, go home, transcribe what you’ve said, and write a paper detailing all the concepts touched upon in what you’ve said. What does this add up to? Certainly not a conversation. You tried to communicate; I engaged in ‘utterance research’ . Yes, your action inspired my action; there’s definitely a connection between our actions! But it’s not a conversation, and crucially, even if I correctly transcribed your speech to the phoneme, and correctly identified the syntactic structure of your sentence, and gave all the meanings of the words you uttered, complete with their sociolinguistic and discourse implications - you would not feel heard. You would feel, correctly, that you were being ignored by someone with his head stuffed so far up, he can only see his own BS. Conversely, some of the best conversations involve misunderstandings (well, also some of the worst!), tangents, free association - within the bounds of good taste. By which I mean that you might really a connection with someone in a conversation, even if some of what you’ve said is ignored, even if some of what you’ve said is taken in a very different direction from what you might have imagined. This is why I feel that Glenn Gould is the ultimate musician (which is far from saying I enjoy his performances). No other musician can give the sense that he is engaged in deep conversation with the the composer. You’ve probably seen me write this elsewhere, but when he plays, I cannot help but imagine the composer listening, saying at times, “Ah! I hadn’t thought of that.”, and at others, “Why the hell would you do that?!” . But his ability to evoke that conversation in every performance is, for me, the greatest expression of music-making. But I ramble. Enough for now. Very interested to watch your whole video!
Thanks so much for this comment Jeremy. I must disappoint you because I do think the piece already exists on the page. That's what I mean by multiple realisability - that it substantially exists on the page, with it's personality already on the page, but then there are multiple ways of realising it in sound. And of course the final realisation will go through the performer and will express the performer's relationship with the piece and their style. And that will mean that we are getting access to the content of the minds of both the composer and the performer. That's why we can instantly recognise who is playing, just from hearing a few bars. But the performer remains primarily a mediator, not a co creator. Now the effect of Wim's theory - though that's not his conscious position - is to smash that gap completely. That's why when someone objects to him that he psychologically falsifies the piece, he says: what's your evidence? Here is something else that's important. When a piece of music lives in my head and in my body, I am not hearing any particular performance of it. Moreover, I am not hearing my own idea of a possible performance. What I am experiencing is closer to the piece itself - it's an experience of the piece that sits PRIOR to any realisation of it in sound. I look forward to an in depth conversation about Glen Gould - I think we may need another video on that. I regard his musical life as a failure, but a tragic one - I think nobody else failed like Gould with that much talent. I think he was one of the most talented musicians of the century.
@@VladVexler I know we disagree on this point! I'm all right with that; I think there's still plenty to agree on, and to debate. Obviously I agree that concepts like 'creator' , 'mediator' , 'piece' , 'realization' , and so forth, are useful abstractions. It just depends on the level of the conversation. If I am simply referencing such-and-such piece by so-and-so composer, obviously I will engage in these abstractions, just like I talk about a chair as a thing even though we can also view it by its atomic structure. But in conversations such as these where the very nature of music is coming into question, I don't find these abstractions to help. I prefer to zoom out and take a bird's-eye view: Beethoven did something, and now I am doing something. Specifically, Beethoven communicated: he sent out signals in an effort to emotionally manipulate other people. We receive his communications and interpret them, and respond. There is only "music-making" , to my way of understanding, if there is this sort of conversation. What you refer to as a piece's 'personality' is subsumed for me in the model of conversation, as simply the character of the speaker and the utterance. But your language of 'realization' to me falls into an unnecessary paternalistic view of things, which doesn't capture the spectrum of interpretation on which we can have, say, Kleiber's Beethoven 5, Karajan's, and Liszt's piano transcription, but also 'A Fifth of Beethoven', and the Judge Judy theme; or even better, Brendel's Hammerklavier, Sanno's Hammerklavier, and Brahms's first piano sonata. Yes, perhaps some of these are more like 'realizations of X' and others are 'compositions inspired by X' , and certainly that is a useful *terminological* distinction, but I don't see the use of considering them to be fundamentally different. They are all simply responses in a conversation. When I listen to conversations between you and others on RUclips, what does it matter that your videos come first? I find your video interesting, as well as the comments of your audience. Similarly, I love what composers wrote, and I also find it interesting to listen to responses in sound to those compositions (ie performances). What you refer to as the general boundaries of an interpretation also makes more sense as a question of communication, rather than what is 'allowable' . In communication, generally speaking, we obviously have concepts that refer to more- and less-abstract concepts. In language especially we have completely referential phrases like 'that sweater you bought me last Christmas' , which communicates low-level phenomena experienced through the senses. On the other hand we have more abstract conceptual relationships. Similarly, since music is organized sound, there are obviously going to be aspects of musical expression that correspond to more low-level and high-level sonic experiences. That's why it is not surprising that in Western music, pitches are considered 'unalterable' in interpretation, whereas other musical elements like dynamics and rhythm can be treated more flexibly. It is no different from the observation that in the sentence, "I don't know what to think about your latest video.", it's clear *what* I'm talking about ('your latest video' has some clear reference in terms of low-level human experience), but much less clear what feelings I'm claiming to have had. What "a piece of music" consists of is maybe the least important question to me, though I have already agreed with you on one of Patrick's videos that it is most felicitious to have 'piece' refer to the score - by which I mean not literally 'the page' , but some abstract syntactic structure of lines and dots that has various isomorphic physical realizations on the page. Anyway this seems like another terminology issue only. I think my most fundamental disagreement with you is our different takes on the status of an "inner" interpretation of a composer's communication. In my way of understanding, I simply go back to the analogy of a conversation, and I see a more clear understanding. You speak something to me; I sit quietly and ponder it. Surely this is not the same as a response in words, but it doesn't make any sense to refer to my quiet pondering as being "closer" to your "true meaning" than my verbal responses. They're both just different responses to your actions; and, of course, the former usually leads to the latter. As for Gould (gosh this has gotten long; sorry, I don't express myself well through RUclips comment threads), I have seen your other videos and am eager to see a follow-up! Again, I don't "like" his interpretations, by and large. I feel largely unmoved by the musical content. But I think he realizes to an unbelievable degree my understanding of music-making as communication between the composer and performer. For crying out loud, I must stop myself now. Have a nice day!
@@plusjeremy Apologies to interfere in this very interesting discussion. There is one point I disagree with which is your classification of unalterable parameters of a composer's score , i.e. pitches, dynamics and rhythm. IMHO , the main reason why these various parameters are not 'treated' with the same rigorous method, is primarily due to the imperfection of the notation system . Obviously, keys and notes are crystal clear, basic rhythm also , however indications related to dynamics, time distortion such as rubato or accents are far from perfection. Fortunately, it gives some free space to the interpreter so one can add his own vision , thinking he is loyal to the score. Nevertheless, I would imagine that if the notation system was such that every parameter could be quantified with a value, including the attack of the notes, such as a midi recording , there would be one and only way to reproduce what the author had in mind, assuming the composer was psycho rigid about the way to play his piece. I don't think Beethoven was rigid , as many testimonies relate that he would never play a given piece twice at the same tempo and he used the sustain pedal much more than indicated, but some other composers, for instance Ravel, were known to be extremely strict and inflexible about the execution of their work not allowing any change , even fingering.
@@periodinstruments8651 We'll have to agree to disagree on this one! Your position seems to be that the precision of various elements of music is due to the notation. I think that there are inherent differences in "precision" (which depend on the musical language and culture), and accordingly the precision of the symbols reflects this. Also, when I used the word 'unalterable' I think I put it in quotes, because I don't believe in such "rules" of interpretation. I was simply pointing out that it should not be a surprise that various aspects of sound are more definite than others, just as 'sweater' is more definite than 'love' . The former is more like a pitch; the latter is more like a tempo or mood indication. I don't think, however, that this means pitch notation is necessarily "perfectly" precise. Composers often hear sounds in their heads which collections of pitches can only imperfectly capture. I also don't necessarily agree that composers use "imprecise" notation to "leave room for interpreters' imagination" . Fundamentally, I feel that composers express emotion through organized sound, communicated through notation. Once a composer fixes every aspect of the sound, using MIDI or whatever, it is no longer a composition - it is a performance. I have commented elsewhere that communication is not possible without interpretation, and hence misinterpretation. To be understood does not mean to faithfully copy some structure of brain synapses into someone else's brain perfectly; that sounds more like the transmission of a virus. To be understood means that what you say has to be interpreted and understood by another person according to their way of understanding. Translation is inherently a part of communication, whether we are talking about spoken language or music.
@19:33 Why do you choose to sacrifice the tempo though? Why not something else? Is tempo less important? I think that's Wim's point. You could obey all directions by second guessing the interpretation of the metronome marks. You also say that you acknowledge that not everything he (Beethoven) asks can go together. Doesn't that alone legitimize at least second-guessing of our current interpretations?
WRONG. I'm not sacrificing the tempo the composer intended. I'm sacrificing ONE indication of the intended tempo, which is the tempo indication itself. Tempo is not an element which is in conflict with other elements of your interpretation. Tempo IS central to your interpretation. You don''t weigh tempo against other things you need to do. You unify it with them. How often I do this depends on the composer. With Beethoven, who is reliable, my preference is always to be slow to overrule him.
Just find some tempomarkings for Dances from that time and the problem should be solved for mr Winters. Dances have their default tempo. Menuett Polonaise Gavotte Mazurka Gigue… whatever, if they are played in a wrong tempo, dancers will kill you or break their feet.
This is true. In fact, tempo of dances contradict even more Wim Winters than piano method books from that period who explicitly prove him wrong. He very often talked about the very fast tempo for Waltzes in his pleading for double beat, ignoring the fact that what the tempo he is thinking of for a Waltz , relates to the dance as we know it nowadays and not as it was back then, as the Waltz was transformed when it got popular in England . It became a much slower dance compared to the original Viennese Waltz of the early 1800 , which according to the dance documents of this period, was a very fast dance.
I don’t understand why your video has 38 dislikes . The only reason I can see is the sectarianism of Wim’s few followers who happened to be also religious extremists for the most part . The simple fact to be against Wim Winters is a good enough reason for them to dislike you at best and hate you at worst . Look at Bernard Ruchti, the simple fact that he is softer than Wim Winters , while still being wrong , is enough to be systematically ignored by Wim’s fan even if he plays at half speed. He is by far the best pianist . Wim is not a pianist, Weller is a joke and Alberto Sana is a young disillusioned and weak character completely under the influence of Wim who manipulates him like a puppet.
Hello there! You are much tougher judger than me, which takes something! Personally, I still wish Wim's channel well. I also think his following reveals a truth about all of us - that we can't see beyond the limited version of a thing we have in front of us, and often think that that thing in front of us is as good as it gets. True of food, wine, sex, art, and musical performance. So I am a bit split. On the one hand Wim's followers are drawn to music, to the lovely sounds of period instruments, and Wim gives them that beautifully. On the other hand, they are really missing out because the music is unrecognisable under his concept.
@@mktsound8240 For me it's about not needing to bridge the world as it is with the world as it should be. Do I want people with batshit crazy ideas to go away or change their mind? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
@@VladVexler I don’t disagree with you , but we have to be self conscious. There is fine line between crazy ideas and conspiracy that one shouldn’t cross. Playing at half speed is a crazy idea that can in some cases produce interesting renditions but pretending it is historical and based on valid facts is a fallacy to be classified as a conspiracy.
@@mktsound8240 I don’t think - am I wrong? - that Wim is claiming that musicologists agree with him but are conspiring to suppress his perspective? I think he is claiming that he figured it out and they haven’t. Interestingly, I don’t believe Wim fully believes himself.
I think there’s potential value in questioning existing recording traditions. With pieces such as the Dvorak Cello Concerto, there are “traditions” which many follow which aren’t present in the score. Wim Winters has come across a particular way to perform standard repertoire pieces differently, which is valuable if we’re going to insist on performing the same 100-200 pieces ad nauseum for the rest of eternity. Because why play things exactly the same way forever and ever? That said, I watched some of the performance videos and my response is “nope.” Haven’t watched any of them all the way through. I can’t bring myself to do it. Well, in certain cases it can be interesting, but I don’t know that I’d advocate for playing Beethoven’s 5th at a whole beat tempo by any means. The famous opening doesn’t sound “Allegro con brio” at all. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
Thank for for your thought! I will be making a second video on Wim soon, to refresh and clarify the ideas in this one. What this channel is committed to is the principle that the character of the piece informs the tempo. That’s a thought without which western art music couldn’t exist. And it’s a thought that is unavailable to Wim.
Wait a minute . No one has an issue with playing at a different tempo ( to a point, as halving the metronome mm by half for slow movements leads to musical nonsense) but everyone has an issue with people manipulating historical facts or documents and making a theory which had been debunked on any possible angle .
Thank you 🙏 for addressing this. I commented on a Mozart symphony performance that it was “excruciating” and people came at me like a pack of sycophantic wolves, eventually suggesting that I was an idiot that should be crucified!
Alan I am so sorry that happened to you. Wim has tunnel vision, which is why he struggles with criticism and why he’s come up with an idea that substitutes macro perspective for a micro detail. This video has aged a bit now, so I will be refreshing it with a fresher one soon! Wish you well!
Many thoughts here, some I agree with, some not. Wim's ideas on tempo - while I disagree with them - can be criticized from different angles. A solid theory should be solid when examined from all viewpoints including the emotional one. Emotional research does not require a library card. On the other hand it is insufficient if it is the only research done. Beethoven said (wrote?) that descriptive tempos were nonsense, and after the metronome came along, he put metronome markings on his symphonies. I agree with you in that a correct interpretation can be approximately the sum of a vast universe of diverse interpretations (not your exact words but my summation of them). However, we cannot properly drive today's automobiles by learning how to ride a horse. I like to practice the "Mondshein" sonata (1) in the slower incorrect tempo but perform it much faster. I'm looking forward to viewing more of your vids. Very thought-provoking. ruclips.net/video/5ktBxktH04A/видео.html
Thanks so much. Just enjoyed your video and subscribed. Of course I don’t believe in debunking Wim, but if there is one fundamental problem he has, it is that he denies that tempo choice is an aesthetic decision. (Doesn’t need to be said to you of course - but for the record aesthetic doesn’t mean arbitrary or devoid of objectivity). Hope you are safe at this time. Much much content on western art music coming up soon on this channel - I look forward to more conversation.
@@VladVexler Well, yes, I would say that tempo choice is an aesthetic decision. So if a composer specifies it (by metronome number) and I play it at his tempo, I am making a choice, because I could have chosen to not obey his specification - under the banner of artistic freedom. I would have to have a sound reason though. Look at Satie's gymnopedies - how many pianists actually play them his specified tempos. So even if we had metronome markings by Ludwig, I suspect that many would disregard them. Not to equate myself, but I sometimes disregard the metronome markings on my own music.
@@rubinsteinway Yes and in these conversations I distinguish the intentions of the composer from the composer's expressed wishes. The former is a deeper notion than the latter.
@@VladVexler A difficult and complex issue. Yes, the intentions may be deeper than the expressed wishes, but we don't know what the former are with total certainty. We do know what the composer has written. Often there are contradictions - seemingly.
@@rubinsteinway Indeed. As Alfred Brendel likes to say, Beethoven's markings match the character of a piece 95% of the time! And we are not so lucky with quite a few other composers!
This is a video of interpretation culture, which is much younger than the music of I.e. Beethoven itself. Please interpret and discover whatever want, but especially by reading those correspondences and instructions of the past, it becomes clear that a tempo is indeed just the speed of a pulse, plus a little beat of character and mood, but still a metronomic speed at its base, that can be put to work. I can’t see how you would come to a different conclusion, without simply referring to the performance and recording practice of the last ~100 years. Thoughts?
@@123Joack Hi and thanks for your comment! I am not quite sure what you mean by interpretation culture. And as a result not sure if you agree or disagree with the video! I am not saying anything about tempo in the video, except (v roughly) that it should go as quickly or slowly as the composer intended. There will be a future video on tempo, where I will argue that there are 3 kinds of tempo, and they are humanly universal beyond wester art music. Metronomic. Improvisatory. And psychological.
@@VladVexler I am saying that Beethoven especially wanted you to play exactly in his metronomic speeds, that is a fact. I only agree with you that a modern performer should take all the 100 things you talk about into account, since reproducing Beethoven’s intention is no longer relevant, but rather creating a contemporary perspective (interpretation). That makes sense to me.
@@123Joack I agree that we need to take B very seriously when he gives a tempo indication. And that in general 95-99% fo the time we shouldn't overrule what he has put into the score. But sometimes he makes a mistake, as I believe he did with the 138 in 106. I actually think Beethoven's intention is the only thing that's relevant. To me, all interpretive decisions follow on from that. But I define intention broadly, as I believe we must do. If we reduce INTENTION to an explicit and conscious command we would be unable to explain why you crossed the road today, or had an almond croissant yesterday!
Why do you think he made a mistake? There are much faster Speeds than his Hammerklavier sonata. If you think he made mistakes giving metronome speeds, after composing a piece for months years or decades, that opens the door to neglecting many more instructions he gave. Also the Hammerklavier is by far not the fastest, or most implausible number given by him or his contemporaries.
A musical composition, like a written theatrical play, is a delimination of a space 1 dimension higher (at least) of any possible performance of the piece. The chosen path through this n-space is necessarily n-1 in dimension - choices made, landmarks missed - a path through the map. The art of the composer / playwight is in the fecundity of the created map. The craft of the performer is in the choice of route through the map. Incidentally, the issue of double/half tempo's can be resolved by paying attention to the dance music. There's no fun to be had gavotting at half speed.
The most universal human value: The ability to plan ahead. I don’t mean consciously, people act impulsive sometimes, I mean the fact that you have already thought about your general idea for the day, and if you haven’t, you’ve planned to get out of bed, get dressed, walk to the living room or kitchen. We do it to an extent that no other animal does. Some can do it a little bit, but we are alone in most of our planning abilities.
So I think we would say that planning ahead is a universal feature of human beings. It's perhaps less obvious that it is a value - for that we would need to talk about 'planning ahead' well, or the role of 'planning ahead 'in a life that goes well.
The issue here is that the proposition from Wim Winters in a way ( like Talsma in the 80’s) is somehow musically agnostic as he pretends that historical documents support it . Moreover , musical sense as such is a subjective field , there is no wrong or right in this domain , only personal taste . It may well be that out of 100 persons , 99 dislike Wim Winters sluggish music ( count me in , I hate it) and only one likes it , but maybe that one person may right historically, so the only way to prove Wim Winters is wrong is to refute the theory and after that it’s a domino effect, all the rest fall to pieces. To use another illustration as soon as you provide a counter proof with an example of one artist playing a difficult piece at tempo , Wim and his few fans always answer ´yes it plays at tempo , but it sounds awful’ so you cannot win if you are using a subjective view and specially not in arts . Don’t get me wrong I am a massive opponent of this silly theory that could refuted in many ways .
Thank you for this. I don't know if I would call Winter's theory "insanity", but I would certainly call it "un-musical". The vast majority of instrumental music written before the 20th century was attempting - to some degree - to imitate the human voice's ability to "carry a tune". You can't carry a tune at half-tempo. It ceases to have phrases and just becomes a series of meaningless notes one after the other - and most ESPECIALLY on the period keyboard instruments that Winter so favours.
Exactly. It should be musical and artistical in the first place. You can criticize all the fetish for fastness at all costs... but practicing so slow that distort any musical idea to the point one cannot understand it is already not advisable... imagine a performance that you cannot understand the musical ideas... That's why I never bought it.
Absolutely. All the scores would have to be transcript in order to sound good in double beat. But 19th scores have been written with standard metronome reading in mind. A lento tempo ( MM=50) means that each quarter note last 2.4s seconds in double beat, in common time. As you say it is impossible to have a musical phrase with such a lengthy note duration, unless you rewrite your score with 8 eights. Obviously you want find these movements in authentic sound channel , has he systematically chose fast movements. It is a case where the listening confirm the maths. It simply doesn't work musically. You can trick people by playing prestissimo slower, but not grave or lento.
Thank you Vlex for your insightful discussion. However, to my mind, Wim Winters’s playing did reveal something intrinsic to the classical style. When he talked of the beginning of his so-called tempo research, he mentioned 2 pieces that he studied at the same time, by Bach and Mozart respectively. They are similar in character, but required to play in very different tempo by today’s academia. Then he began to question the tempo of the Mozart piece. Many of his playing sounds like a ridiculous mixture. While many parts absolutely lose the sense of momentum and excitement, some parts of the piece, if heard separately, sound not only appropriate, but also refreshing and insightful. Take his Beethoven op.10 no.3 as an example. His overall tempo can hardly be called ‘presto’, but the b minor part in the exposition sounds perfect as a woodwind duet by bassoon and oboe/flute. I thought, if it’s a Bach piece and he played it this way, nobody would accuse him of being too slow. However, is it valid to play a Beethoven sonata in this manner? Why are 2 pieces of music even sharing the similar character instructed by composers to be played in drastically different tempi? This question can be a debunk of Wim’s ‘absolute’ conception of tempo, but it also reveals the difference between baroque and classical styles, especially something essential to classical style. That’s a kind of music interacting with its context, by juxtaposition and transition. To put it radically, it’s not only Wim that manipulates some parts of Beethoven and Mozart to accommodate them to a ‘single’ tempo, but also Mozart and Beethoven that manipulate(or designate) certain musical idioms passed onto them to a certain tempo or momentum by juxtaposition and transition in their compositions.
It doesn't make sense to speak of validity with respect to behavior. He did it, didn't he? Do you mean is it 'valid' to call what he did an interpretation? Well, he feels it is. Are you trying to set up an absolute metric by which he is wrong and you are right? Well, Wim will just disagree with this metric. So there is no point in debating along these lines, I feel. What we can talk about is, firstly, whether we enjoy listening to Wim's performances. Here, without question, there are many people who do - I myself enjoy many of his performances. Secondly, we can ask as lovers of the composer, whether we feel Wim's interpretations fully engage in conversation with what Beethoven has put forth. That's where I feel Wim fails most; what Vlad describes as "doing violence" to certain layers of the music. Consider that second group in B minor from Op. 10, No. 3. The melody, abstracted from the rest of the music, could certainly be played at a wide range of tempi and with a wide variety of character. It could be slow and plaintive, with heaviness to each eighth note. It could be andante, flowing, melancholy, with four light pulses to the bar. (The accompaniment to this section could be played like the guitar in "Voi che sapete" from Figaro.) It could be restless and agitated, with accents to each half note. Or impassioned, with one beat to the bar. This is why Wim's playing can sound lovely at any given moment. He is quite good at playing all these characters and shadings, and if you are solely focused on one dimension of the music, he can satisfy. And in this sense, Wim is quite impressive with his flexibility and imagination. But for me, this approach fails as soon as you zoom out even the slightest bit. The opening of the movement is unquestionably full of energy and excitement. The first phrase ending at the fermata is clearly in one breath (I always hear the words, "you should get a medal/or be even made a knight", from My Fair Lady) - this already restricts the range of tempi (even if you don't consider the cut-time and presto indications). Further, when you consider that this first phrase has to be harmonically and texturally balanced by the next six bars, the range of tempi is restricted even further - otherwise we would not hear the two as a pair. Finally, climax of the opening, where the two hands alternate the same notes in octaves, requires that there can be no weight on the second eighth note of each pair - Beethoven has clearly only added texture and excitement to the opening theme. Similar comments could be made about the alternation in octaves in bars 56-65: this music doesn't make sense unless there is a strong rhythmic connection between each pair of quarter notes, so there cannot be four pulses to the bar. (The sforzandi in bars 31 and 35 suggest this as well.) Etc ad nauseum. In short, most of the musical material of the movement suggests a tempo which is quite brisk; certainly with no more than two big beats to the bar. (And I haven't even begun to touch on the rest of the movement!) This agrees perfectly with Beethoven's indication of a cut-time Presto. This, then, fixes the sort of interpretation of the B minor section that can make a fitting contrast to the opening. It has to be a sentiment / mood / tempo that does justice to the basic pulse established in the opening. No doubt the pulse will broaden a bit, because there is plenty of excitement in the left hand, but it is critical to the form that the two sections sound like different sides of the same coin. For what it's worth, I do feel many performances of this piece are so fast as to be incoherent, but that's not to say I prefer Wim's approach. As long as there is a touch of exhiliration, I am not offended.
Thanks so much for your comment. I'll make a sideways remark rather than a direct reply. I really attend to each piece on its own terms. I treat each piece as a world onto itself - and as an object that exists independently of the composer. So my views on what's right or wrong are always terribly specific to a piece. Ideas like 'this is how you play late Beethoven' are rather alien to me. Warm wishes.
@@VladVexler is there not any middle ground? Of course I can’t get away from my “conversation” model, but thinking of speech, when my wife says something to me, I do try to hear it with fresh ears, with as few expectations as I can - but I don’t forget completely that I know the person who’s speaking. Do you really shut out any sense of the composer as a whole, or even phases of a composer’s life, like, “Beethoven around the time he composed Op 101 and 102”?
@@plusjeremy no!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Of course I don’t shut it out - my main complaint about piano playing in the major halls is that so often the performer knows the composer’s piano writing well, but not their ensemble and orchestral work. And I think that knowledge is so important to understanding what the composer wants. I take this to be compatible with what I say above!
Personally, I would much rather listen to someone play op. 106 at or near 138 (1st mvt) without executing perfectly every note, articulation and phrase mark than someone plodding through at half tempo and destroying the spirit/intention of this masterpiece. BTW, I'm sure everyone knows this sonata was deemed "unplayable" by Beethoven's peers.
I cannot agree more with what you say . Perfection is not a substitute for feeling . Best example imho is Samson Francois version of the difficult concerto for left hand which is considered by many as the best rendition ever . There are a few bump notes , so nowadays he would lose in competitions but no one has ever been able to convey as much feeling as he did . . Op 106 is about taking risk as explained eloquently by Schiff , so go for it , give 110 % of what are you capable of and the public will not care if you miss the first jump, you will still be a hero !
Hammerklavier is playable at Beethoven's tempo but some intervalles are too strechted for an average hand on modern klavier and some polyphonies are supposing leaving the pitch before the full duration. The weird thing is it's as extreme as some contemporary pieces like Xenakis's. So probably Von Bulow tempo was right because if one's succed to play at original tempo is would seem to sound weird or anachronical I think. (Schnabel's pretty near) Yves Nat is amazing too.
Yes Schnabel must be the fastest of the major pianists. I have an episode coming up on the opening jump of open 106! Whether we should (1) distribute hands, (2) play with one hand, (3) cross hands or (4) play with one hand once and then distribute!
@@VladVexler one hand jump is mandatory ( so to speak) . Andreas Schiff talks about it in his lectures and considers it as a wish if taking risk’ inherent to the spirit of the piece . It is actually not the scariest jumps in the repertoire . I guess the main technical challenge with jumps is to have enough lateral speed to position the hand with sufficient margin to secure the next chord . Here the biggest help for the pianist is the B flat key which helps securing the chord . If you take ravel concerto for left hand the opening jump is as problematic if no more , there is less lateral distance but no black key to secure the landing and it must be played at lightning speed . It is the biggest fear of any live performer who ever played that piece in public , however no none disputes that it must be played as intended and at the tempo required . It reminds me scores rewritten by some pianists made to redistribute the hands in Goldberg variations. I guess the main challenge is not whether or not you can achieve the same musical result using 2 hands or redistributing the notes , but whether or not you are capable to engage in the piece in a manner which is compatible with what the composer wanted . It’s a long debate but one thing I’m sure of is that the satisfaction you get when you overcome a technical challenge of that nature gives you a ticket to raw pleasure .looking fwd to your video on the subject
@@ChristianJoannes Ha ha yes I look forward to your critique, because I think Schiff is wrong! I will also review in that video the 4 options different pianists have historically deployed in the opening two jumps of opus 106. (Of course I don't mean it is unplayable with one hand; it is easily playable as you rightly say). To be continued!!
@@VladVexler this is a fascinating topic . Taking the example mentioned above , would you consider legitimate to play the Ravel concerto with 2 hands instead of LH only ? It makes life simpler and it well played, can sound the same . Alfred Cortot edited it so it could be played with 2 hands and Ravel was so upset that he wrote to most European conductors to ask them not to play with him! How can we be sure that Beethoven wouldn’t have reacted similarly given he was known to be very strict about adherence to his intentions ? We know that both Liszt and Von Bulow recommended it to be played with 2 hands, but Beethoven could have been equally upset about it .
I disagree. i) Beethoven was a tempo and piano technique nerd. There is almost no room for the interpreter to fool around with piano technique and tempo with Beethoven. Of course it is interesting to do it nonetheless and obviously other pieces/composers even require it, but, here it's super cheap to deflect with philosophical pedantry and sophistication. ii) It's playable. See ruclips.net/video/XFzP0h3p1-I/видео.html . iii) Late Beethoven was almost completely deaf; and he most likely compose using its inner ear and mental practice. It is thus very possible that he chose a tempo that corresponds to the ideal piece, neglecting practical implications. Czerny did left testimony that it was the case. That does not mean that this fast tempo should be seen as wrong. iv) There is no shame in playing it slower, because what Beethoven intent was too hard. The blunt truth is that Wim is right when he says that historical tempos should be an ideal. If you fasten the tempo of the best recordings up to 130+ bpm, subjects and counterpoints sounds actually really, really good. But this means one has to admit "OK I can't play it so fast, so I will play it according to my technique because, you know, I can't".
(1) I think 95% of the time it's not OK to overrule Beethoven. (2) I think all Webster's performance shows is that it can be played near 138, but no one doubts that. It is even playable above 140. But if I were doing a masterclass, I would stop any pianist who tried to play it above 120 on a modern piano. I briefly explain why in this video and may do a longer episode just on 106 in the near future. (3) I think Beethoven simply made a mistake with 138. I think that's obvious and were he to come to the piece, he would probably correct it. (4) I think a performance on a period instrument could get closer to 138 with less damage to the piece. On a modern piano, as Alfred Brendel says, not even the devil himself could play it in a way Beethoven asks at the tempo he asks.
@@VladVexler You're welcome. I saw few other videos of yours on other subjects (Neolib, Putin) and they're are really really good, the points that are not so mainstream but "obvious" appear very clearly which is immo the goal of philosophy. This one on double beat was harder to follow, it would have required a 1 min intro summary hook; YT /social media requires a ridiculous amount of unmannered emphasis on the logical architecture of the discourse and main points. but I think you know this.
Beethoven originally put ‘Allegro assai’ or ‘assai Allegro’ and then replaced it with just ‘Allegro’. Charles Rosen points out that 138 would have been normal for an Allegro in the 1780s. Now we are talking 40 years later, and much denser material than a typical Mozart Allegro. There are two more considerations - a faster tempo works better on a period instrument. And, Beethoven would not have thought that a metronome marking was valid for the entirety of a work. However, taking all that into account, the 138 indication remains an error of judgement on Beethoven’s part and requires a 15-20% reduction at least. One thing that remains clear is that the work cannot be majestic or magisterial. Hence Wim’s tempo is an evasion of the character of the work.
@@VladVexler Charles Rosen wrote and excellent book on the Classical Style, but I don't know where he got the information that 138 (1/4 note?) would have been normal for an Allegro in the 1780s. Again you say that a faster tempo works better on a period instrument, but, except for runs, that is apparently not so. Yes, I agree that Beethoven would not have considered the same MM valid for an entire movement. However, the variation around the given MM would surely not be extreme and there would have to be a musical reason for this variation. The material of the Hammerklavier does follow the Czerny description of a majestic and magisterial character allegro, especially the opening of the first movement. Its complexity, musical density and counterpoint preclude the fast tempo at which it is normally played. Wim and Alberto are spot on.
@@petertyrrell3391 I can only agree to disagree! Glad you are getting value from Wim’s content. I wonder - do you enjoy all pieces at Wim’s tempo? You do you find that some work for you and others don’t?
@@VladVexler I enjoy most of Wim's tempi - at these speeds you can give a variety of articulation and more easily respect the composer's markings. I am not sure whether WB is really valid for Tchaikovsky, Brahms or Grieg, though.
The cantabile - whether the singing of the human voice or of string instruments - that Mozart’s and Beethoven’s keyboard music requires was not yet possible in their time...
@@VladVexler Well, with keyboard instruments other than the organ, you just have to use your imagination, or if you are a composer, not write long notes, or fill them out with ornaments.
Some harpsichordists and fortepianists can draw a very beautiful cantabile from their instruments; and the old stringed instruments and woodwinds can likewise be played cantabile. Stylistic considerations often demand a more articulated style of performance than later became the norm; but that reflects musical sensibility, rather than any inherent limitations of the older instruments.
Excellent video. A pleasure to watch and listen to . 🙌 . The only argument I disagree with somehow is when you say there is no point debunking this theory . I consider the approach to let conspiracy type of theories die by themselves was valid in the 80-90’s prior to the effect that social media networks had when it comes to influencing people’s mind. Prior to that period , libraries and scholarship articles were the principal vectors for knowledge, therefore a theory that wasn’t supported by academics had a limited lifetime . Nowadays , it’s different. The RUclips and Facebook are amongst the main instruments to propagate ideas and they only care about advertising not about ethics . The fact is that if you search for ‘Beethoven tempo’ on RUclips you will likely be presented with a link to Authentic Sound which is insane . Bottom line , one or two videos that refute this craziness is far from being enough. Not to convince double beaters because it is a sect , but to present articles on the subject to new audience interested with the subject.
Look, I am very worried that our public squares are regulated by large companies which have no more legitimacy for the task than my local kebab shop. I'm very concerned about that - and some of the past and hopefully future videos on this channel will be on this. Part of the reason I never engaged with a direct rebuttal of Wim is that @pianopat has done a good job of this on RUclips. And a few others chipped in too. And perhaps another reason is just a matter of sensibility - I don't regard Wim's views as dangerous. Very few, if any, musicians or listeners with a deep relationship to music will buy into his theory. But I think that's a matter of sensibility, a matter of how far you are interested in bridging the world as it is with the world as it might be! Thanks so much for your kind comment. I have a lot of classical music planned. This channel is 30%+ about the aesthetics of musical performance! (Something the RUclips algorithm does not like!)
How very German in thought, Herr Winters - langsamer ist ernster. I'm sure Herr Wagner would demure as he said first the performer must find the right tempo as the composer intended. But what would he know. It seems all composers toss off compositions without realizing what they wrote, even if The Ring took 26 years. In fact, the poor composer has to try and put on paper with dots and lines what he hears in his head. That's where the performer enters in- to try and recreate, not reinvent, what the composer imagined. And the metronome? Is that just chopped liver? (Beethoven's not withstanding) In fact, this shows how far we have come from the age that created these works and instead we get the Jacques Derrida of music who will teach us how to deconstruct the work of genius'. Maestro Italo Marchini
I think there are a combination of things at play. First, most composers didn't give metronome markings and many of them were added to the scores in later editions by other people. Second, it's certainly possible that there was confusion about the metronomes interpretation, that is, some editors may have used the double beat formulism, some may have used single beat. This is certainly reasonable for things that are blatantly unplayable or unsingable. Finally, the metronomes themselves may have not been standardized in terms of speed. This alone means we might have to throw old markings out entirely, since they may not be reliable in the first place, single or double beat. Even if Wim is correct about the theory that we used to use the double beat formulism, it still implies a change at some point in history. There were bound to be both late and early adaptors, and we wouldn't know who was who. I'm in favor of throwing them out entirely and playing how we feel like playing. Like Gould
There is no proof that there was ever a double-beat interpretation of the metronome. Wim Winters confidently asserts that it existed, but anybody who looks carefully at his sources will see that he has no proof at all, and his arguments depend on grotesque misinterpretations. It was always single-beat, so there was never a change from double-beat to single-beat, there was never any confusion. That is the only sane starting-point for discussions about nineteenth-century tempi.
Sorry, “only one” of them? When the tempo is the most important thing for a piece? My only complaint, rest of the video is a great essay on modern interpretation trains-of thought. Keep it up!
In fact you are meeting Wim exactly on his most cloudy levels with even more absolute interpretations than him. Consider yourself one more windmill, lying in ruins, convinced they have become the empire state building. Quixote rides away unscathed. I love it.
I am less than a dilettante in the area of classical music and not even minimally equipped to refute your confident assertion that Wim’s thesis is cracked, but I listened carefully your entire argument and did not hear you effectively address the central question of why the tempi affixed to classical manuscripts are consistently unplayable. Did I miss something?
Hello Robert, thanks so much for subscribing, and for your comment! You are absolutely right that I don't attempt to debunk Wim. Let me put it this way: if you asked every pianist alive who has played in one of the world's major halls whether Wim's theory is right, less than 0.1% would side with Wim. That doesn't prove him wrong, but if you think he is obviously wrong, as I do, it makes it less interesting to debate his views directly. Now to your question: it's just not true that most pieces are unplayable. If you take Beethoven in particular, his tempo indications are in the right ball park 95% of the time. With some contemporary composers you may get closer to 100%. Schumann and Chopin were less precise with their markings. But overall, only a very small fraction of pieces in wester classical music would be unplayable. You can see this for yourself by listening to Wim - in most of his performances doubling the tempo would be easily done. But there is something else that's more important. My main objection to Wim remains that you can't begin to talk about the tempo until you take into account every important aspect of the piece. Tempo choice is a product of a cumulative aesthetic sense of the piece. And the great composers knew that. Do my comments help at all? Thank you again for stopping by! Ps. If you did wish for a bit by bit debunking of Wim's view, check out the channel of Patrick Hemmerle - ruclips.net/video/rqkvAyMoJ04/видео.html
@@VladVexler Thanks for pointing out my misapprehension. My exposure to Authentic Sound began coincidentally with my purchase of a copy of Czerny exercises that have MM numbers that struck me as ridiculous. (Embarrassing disclosure: I’m a 63 year-old who has only in the last year quixotically decided to begin learning piano). This made Wim’s argument compelling for me. I somehow got the idea that he claimed ALL classical MM numbers were impossible. I enjoyed your presentation and look forward to more.
It was like listening to Donald Trump. If you rant long enough about something the people of your party will persuade themselves that you've actually made an argument. Lorenz Gadient found a simple, incontrovertible truth and now all these people are running around in a panic because Darwin just told them they're monkeys. I myself, I'm happy that Winters et al are doing such a good job of restoring such a crucial element to this music. This is just another step in the right direction for the period instrument movement. It's a pity that some are so shaken by it.
@@PabloMelendez1969 There is a certain wild poetry to where Wim has ended up. And his videos are beautiful. And I am in favour of his channel growing. And indeed this is not a debunking video - that would mean you take your target’s view seriously, which I don’t.
Surely Glenn Gould beat Winters to the winning post on this. I think, of course, of his recording of Beethoven's Appassionata and all the Mozart sonatas. That said, Gould acted out of sheer perversity (I think most of what he did was deliberately perverse, in both word and deed), not some misguided musical theory.
You may enjoy this 10 min chat on how Gould used and misused his talent - ruclips.net/video/WdCSZODNnVs/видео.html I quite agree, Gould in all kinds of ways pushes to loosen the hold of faithfulness to the score, whereas Wim insists on it.
@@VladVexler Thank you so much, Vlad. I greatly enjoyed listening to your observations about Gould, just as I also read with immense pleasure Anton Kuerti's article dissecting him some years back. With pleasure because these are things that I have increasingly felt needed to be said over the years. I used to wonder if I were missing something. After all, we know the likes of Karajan, et al., loved long telephone calls from Gould. Then it occurred to me that no one knows what Karajan was thinking during those calls. Gould's perversity might strike some as hugely entertaining. That I can see. But slowly over time I shook my head more and more, and then I heard him pontificating on why he regards Romantic composers as not worth the effort, this topped by what seemed almost a non sequitur about how he did find good things in, if I remember rightly, Boccherini, whatever that had to do with it! No, I thought, all this is just Gould's idea of how to epater la bourgeoisie. I have to doubt if he would get away even with his Bach if he emerged today, when we have heard Perahia, Ashkenazy, Hewitt, et al. Berg, Schoenberg, yes, but even his Bach is perverse, some tempi so much so that I didn't recognize works I've played myself. This is sad, but I do think it is so. Saying as much may, of course, bring a storm about one's head, for his devotees are very devoted indeed. I also have an idea that going to Russia right at the start was the best things Gould ever did for himself. The whole point about his immense Russian triumph was they did not know any better, and so it was a revelation, but what Gould revealed was not a truth.
P.S. I thank you so much for your blog! It is something of an oasis for me. And I say that in spite of what you said about Rachmaninoff not being a serious composer!! 😃
So, on one hand, the pieces were intended to have been played for and enjoyed by the people paying the composer. The other hand, they were impossible ideals meant for interperation and study, waiting for the future to grace the ear in total. We have that technology and can listen to it at the intended speed. It sounds like garbage on fire. There's no denying it. All studies of art, especially ones steeped in prestige at a high level, are plagued with a sort of inbreeding of ideas because of it's pride and exclusivity. It's a case of the emperor's new clothes. The music is bad and doesn't actually amuse hardly anybody. By the time they've settled into what they're hearing, the piece moves on. When a computer is used to play it at true speed, it sounds much worse. Someone is wrong. Not sure who. But it's a fact that prestige is an inbreeding ground. And, of course, this doesn't apply to all pieces from then.
The problem is that Wim is not a musicologist but a propagandist. He ignores, hides, obscures and distorts evidence and creates false premises in order to draw his audience to his conclusions. It appears you are entertaining several of these premises. Proceed with caution as very few who have fallen into the pit of Winterism have found their way out.
Look Fresh Revelry- all I can say is that one explores these pieces, and tries to tease out what they tell one about themselves. And that that’s a never ending process.
The algorithm took me to your channel because of my interests in politics. This is the first of your musical content I have listened to. By chance I had heard Wim talk about his theory about metronome markings and found him compelling. Of course, this could be because of all the insanely fast tempi I am currently struggling against. But my real interest in this particular video is how you set up your premise. Yes, Wim has excellent linguistic and analytical skills, so his arguments are easily taken as authoritative. What you are saying about the context of interpretation - you are saying that evidence by itself is not enough. I am deeply disturbed by what is going on inside Russia. There are bits and pieces of Putin's arguments that could possibly have merit, taken on their own. But context ... I am saving this video under "epistemology" - your thoughts bring clarity in these troubling times. Thank you.
Thank you for your words! It will be interesting to see what happens when I share more music content with the folks here for Russia analysis. I do think it’s all connected - but the connection isn’t obviously visible.
A couple of Spanish musicologist have recently put forth a compelling theory that explains the logic behind the unusual high metronome markings provided by Beethoven , which is one of Win’s arguments to defend his double beat theory. They found Beethoven was consistently misreading his metronome by taking as a reference the lower side of the trapezoidal weight when he should have used the upper side. They even found a handwritten annotation in the manuscript of the 9th symphony in which Beethoven, realizing his previous mistakes, clarifies that the two markings can be used: the one provided by the upper side and the lower side of the trapezium. This theory debunks once and for all the double beat nonsense
Thanks so much for your comment. Of course my view is that Wim doesn't need debunking, or at least doesn't need debunking from me - so this video is more a general reflection on the phenomenon. Nobody serious needs to debunk the idea of playing pieces twice as slow, any more than one needs to debunk flat earthism. The problem is never located in the judgement itself, but at a stage prior. Flat earthism is not a mistaken view about the physical properties of the earth!
@@VladVexler I fully agree on the double beat nonsense. With my comment I also tried to shed light on the fact that Beethoven’s metronome markings are way too fast, which has fed the imagination of double beat proponents. The truth is that nobody plays Beethoven as fast as he indicated it; hence the theory I heard about establishing that he got the markings wrong.
@@barralpha well I think he is 95% right with his markings, but certainly we need to judge for ourselves which tempo makes sense and sometimes correct him. It’s also helpful to distinguish Beethoven getting the tempo wrong vs Beethoven getting the tempo indication wrong. What tempo he intends is a product of all the things he cumulatively asks for in the piece.
This is a tempting hypothesis; however, it is unlikely to be valid for 2 reasons. The first one being that the shape of the cursor on old antique metronomes is such that it is unlikely that you would use the bottom of the cursor as the reference. Some models had the bottom part of the weight, rounded as opposed to being a straight line. Secondly, the norm was to sample your metronome and check that had 60 ticks per minute when the cursor was on 60, which was the reference point for each metronomes ( as a reference to heart beat) which means that the cursor had to be positioned the right way and we also know Maelzel being a personal friend of Beethoven have talked a lot about the metronome prior to Maelzel licensing it . So I much prefer to think that Beethoven only applied metronome marks for the first bars as he wrote it.
@@P.Robert-m8r these academics have published an article which probably answers your point. They had access to Beethoven’s metronome and they also argue that Beethoven himself was not a very techy guy, considering the metronome was a new invention. It is interesting, though, the two markings provided by Beethoven in his manuscript of the 9th symphony which seem to correspond to the higher and lower sides in the cursor of the metronome he used at that time.
Hi Vlad, I have some thoughts to share as a second year classical piano student at university. I am rather new to this whole beat theory and whatever else, and while I do find it deeply fascinating upon first impression, I believe I still have plenty of an outside perspective on it and so I can completely understand why you would think Wim is absolutely crazy for taking this approach to music interpretation. With respect, I think you have (in this video - perhaps you have more understanding now) some fundamental misunderstandings of the whole beat theory or whatever you want to call it. In Wim's own words, unlike what you say right at the start, the whole beat interpretation of tempo is NOT a literal halving of the tempo marking given - it is simply subdividing the pulse, which granted does reduce the general speed, but it's not completely halved. There is also the consideration of tempo ordinario, the idea that time signatures themselves have an inherent tempo/pulse, which would more often than not reduce the halving effect quite a bit. You did not mention this idea anywhere - which I understand, given the one-take style, you probably did not script the video. In addition, unlike what you say earlier in the video, he is NOT looking at the tempo markings or anything *in isolation.* Rather, in many many videos where he talks about his approach to finding tempo, he looks at a few things: a) the notation b) the time signature c) THEN the tempo marking. The harmonic texture of the piece also gets taken into account, but not as much as these three factors together. The subdivision of the pulse affects *everything.* These are some of the ideas I noticed you did not really address in the way that I've observed Wim express them. I think you misrepresented his ideas, whether or not you did it intentionally or not does not matter in my opinion. I just wanted to point it out. At the end of the day, he might be some crazy guy who's overly obsessed with tempo; and yet even if that is the case, he is still offering some unique and personally very enjoyable interpretations of pieces I've heard millions of times, and yet never like he has played. There is at least that merit to his playing. Have a good day!
Another youngster who has been fooled by Winters . Let me explain . If you play any score metronomically in single beat it will be EXACTLY 2x faster than in double beat . This is mathematic . Don’t try to use the pulse as an explanation , it has nothing to do with it . Metronome gives you the number of times a note value is played in a minute . That’s it . Wim winters is confusing people purposely because he compares his tempo to modern renditions of pieces who even though are 100% in single beat don’t play all bars at the same beat because of musical phrases , ritardandos etc. So indeed a strict version of a score played metronomically in double beat is not twice slower than a musical rendition in single beat . But he is not comparing apples to apples . And actually in many cases he doesn’t even play metronomically either . But again double beat is by definition TWICE slower than single beat . If you are a student , take your metronome and check it yourself instead of listening to this charlatan
@@mktsound8240 Hi MKTsound, unfortunately you have misunderstood me from the word go. I suppose you only read my first sentence and went on to respond? Because in my original comment, I demonstrated how in the context of Wim's perspective, there are other factors in the score that contribute to choosing tempo, i.e the notation and the actual time signature. These in fact come before the tempo marking itself. That is why subdividing the tempo marking in fact does NOT literally halve it, in this interpretation. Tempo Ordinario is also a factor, which I repeat, Vlad did not mention one bit. I do not blame him, but I digress. Musically speaking, when it comes to finding tempo, I don't see how you can say the pulse, or meter, has "nothing to do with it," when that is a fundamental element of understanding rhythm and by extension tempo in western music. When you have a time signature such as 4/4, what you are looking at is literally four beats in a bar. In reality that is kinda vague, and honestly says practically nothing by itself about what the music's rhythm or general feeling will actually be. When interpreting a score, you are literally subdividing the time signature inherently. This is one of the ways the pulse is so fundamental. This applies also to when you are listening to music; you feel the pulse by subdividing the beats you hear. This is a natural way to do it. Of course, instead of requiring you to subdivide (like notation inherently often does), composers could have written time signatures to literally represent the note values in the music, for example in Czerny's op 299 no 1 for Piano where the most consistent note value is a 16th, he could have chosen 16/16 instead of 4/4. But he didn't. I do not know your musical background, but perhaps you would agree that subdivision of notation is an inherently musical thing. I find it not only logical but genuinely musically consistent to subdivide a metronome marking's note value, just like you do a time signature, which I emphasise represents literal note values as well. I invite you to actually watch Wim's videos with an open mind, since what I can observe from your response is one of a confirmation bias. Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems as though you haven't given his ideas a fair chance. You've simply repeated what Vlad said in the video himself, which I believe is inherently misunderstanding the perspective of the topic he's talking about. In fact, you do not even need to watch his videos; you just have to think about it mathematically, which I suppose is ironic given you insisted on a mathematical explanation yourself. Why don't you provide to me a single performance of the hammerklavier sonata that conforms to the literal tempo marking in the 1st movement? Or Czerny's op 299 no 1? Or 21? I have tried, and there is none that has done it - not even Lang Lang. The question is, why not? In Czerny's case, if he literally says to play to the metronome marks he gives, why is there not a single recording of someone doing it for these examples? They're not exactly isolated examples, either. I am talking about famous pieces especially. Anyway, one answer - if not THE answer - is simple, and even musical. Occam's Razor suggests the simplest answer is probably the most reasonable; at first to find the tempo using this idea you might say, just look at the tempo marking; then in many cases you find it's too fast, so in this case, Occam's Razor suggests those speeds are simply too fast to actually play. Then you look for another solution. Have you ever tried to play those kinds of studies at full, literal tempo? I have, and it's not possible. The kinds of rates at which you have to play notes per second for those extreme tempo markings is ridiculous, coming again from a composer who specifically says to play to the metronome marking. We're talking about sacrilegious-flight-of-the-bumblebee-violinist level speeds. 15+ notes/second. Even almost 30 notes/second. And those are the kinds of things you are supposed to play daily, repeatedly without stopping, until you complete it fully. These are for students, keep in mind. Beginner students. Is it not incredibly ironic that the classical world is so obsessed with following the score and playing what the composer intended, and yet this fundamental part of playing music is dismissed as just something you have to vaguely follow? In your own words, take Czerny's works, "take your metronome and check it yourself instead of listening to this charlatan", except I do not think anyone is a charlatan. Let me just say that I actually do not have a personal problem with modern interpretations of tempo at all, I enjoy listening to all of it. My point in this is to clarify my thoughts on Wim's ideas, and to propose that there is at least some mathematical and musical consistency in the overall topic. I apologise for a lengthy read, I hope that what I say makes sense to you. Have a good day and live through music, always!
@@andreasvandieaarde 1) Tempo Ordinario is also a factor, which I repeat, Vlad did not mention one bit. I do not blame him, but I digress. Non sense. We are talking about interpretation of metronome indication by Maetzel . Tempo ordinario was used prior to metronome invention and mostly used in baroque music ( Bach) 2) Musically speaking, when it comes to finding tempo, I don't see how you can say the pulse, or meter, has "nothing to do with it," when that is a fundamental element of understanding rhythm and by extension tempo in western music. Pulse has nothing to do with tempo. Talk to your teacher or document yourself. Pulse is linked to rhythm and musical phrasing, not to speed. Tempo only dictates how many notes are played in a minute. That’s it. 3) When you have a time signature such as 4/4, what you are looking at is literally four beats in a bar. In reality that is kinda vague. etc Really?? I mean are you serious here? I can see the root cause of your problem. You are confused mixing various concepts: Tempo, pulse, time signature, note values and subdivisions. What you really have to understand are strong beats and weak beats for the various time signatures. That is what matter the most to feel the music. In a given time signature you can change the note value and the corresponding MM accordingly and the music will be 100% identical. Just refer to Maetzel tables. What give the real musical feel is how the melodic line is phrased as a layer above the weak and strong beats, 4) invite you to actually watch Wim's videos with an open mind, since what I can observe from your response is one of a confirmation bias. Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems as though you haven't given his ideas a fair chance. Wrong again, I subscribed to years channel about 6 years. I got banned 2.5 years ago because I posted counter evidence on one video he made about Mersenne which was a pile completely wrong. If you really investigate and visit board criticising Wim Winters, you will find out that he banned an incredible number of people including performing musicians simply because they provided counter proof. 5) You've simply repeated what Vlad said in the video himself, which I believe is inherently misunderstanding the perspective of the topic he's talking about. In fact, you do not even need to watch his videos; you just have to think about it mathematically, which I suppose is ironic given you insisted on a mathematical explanation yourself. I won’t even bother replying here. 6) Why don't you provide to me a single performance of the hammerklavier sonata that conforms to the literal tempo marking in the 1st movement? Even Bernard Ruchti who is adept of slow music can play the intro of the hammerklavier at tempo, It is on his channel . Artur Schnabel who was the first pianist to record the 32 sonatas is pretty much aligned with the tempo even he chose to play the intro in 131/ instead of 138. In all cases, people interpret the piece musically not metronomically. This isa piece of music not a midi file played by a robot. 7) Or Czerny's op 299 no 1? Or 21? I have tried, and there is none that has done it - not even Lang Lang. The question is, why not? In Czerny's case, if he literally says to play to the metronome marks he gives, why is there not a single recording of someone doing it for these examples? Do the following searches on RUclips . I can’t copy the addresses as RUclips blocks it Czerny 1,2,3 at tempo Search for PianothShaveck Czerny Op. 299 N. 1, 2 and 3 at Czerny's tempo PianothShaveck is an experimented pianist with excellent technique Czerny no 4 at tempo Search for Joao Terceira Czerny op 299/4 at tempo - Asiya Korepanova Asiya Korepanova is a very well known Russian pianist , this video was originally produced on her Twitter site as explained in the video description And more on Czerny … Search for Francesco Libetta Czerny , Italian virtuoso He has recorded the quasi totality of Czerny difficult opuses 299, 740 … at tempo and has given lot of concerts The worst of that is that Wim Winters knows all of that. There is a famous exchange on the historical performance facebook group with Wim admitted that PianothShaveck Had played 299/1 at tempo and then he said. Now try no 2, and this why the video 1,2,3 was produced. WIm Winters has never posted anything on that facebook group since and obviously never mentioned it on his channel. 8) Have you ever tried to play those kinds of studies at full, literal tempo? I have, and it's not possible. The kinds of rates at which you have to play notes per second for those extreme tempo markings is ridiculous, coming again from a composer who specifically says to play to the metronome marking. We're talking about sacrilegious-flight-of-the-bumblebee-violinist level speeds. 15+ notes/second. Even almost 30 notes/second. Just watch the video called Winters debunked by Authentic sound ( in two words) The video shows a concert of Lang Lang playing the flight of bumble bee at 15.45 notes per second with a chronometer The original concert in 2006 can be found f you search Lang Lang - Flight of the Bumblebee So I am afraid you need to do your homework prior to engaging into tempo discussion. My advice would be to check by yourself before you believe whatever Wim Winters says When I call him a charlatan, I don’t do it for the sake of ad hominem attack. I use this attribute because he misinterprets very often and intentionally official sources Just watch the video Wim Winters & the double beat fallacy by period instruments It clearly shows the magnitude of the problem and the errors and false claims made by this pseudo musicologist.
@@mktsound8240 Unfortunately I just lost my first response just now! I will try to recreate what I said (I don't think I will remember all of it). :^) Thank you for sharing these videos with quite impressive tempos. I am especially impressed with the Czerny op 299 no 2 and 3 - no 1 wasn't quite consistently to the tempo, but the following two exceeded the marking. Also the no 4. Very impressive. One gripe I have with that particular no 1-3 video is the suggestion that with "reasonable Piano technique," these "easy Czerny etudes" are possible to be played to those speeds. To me, that dismisses the frankly unrealistic speeds that you have to hit for what I think can be agreed upon is a target demographic of beginner students when it comes to playing those pieces. Even at the conservatory where I study classical Piano, I haven't heard anyone play those opening etudes to speed, with no disrespect to them. And while I definitely grant that those etudes are more-or-less genuinely playable, is it realistic to expect those results from beginners? I honestly do not think so. We might have to agree to disagree on that. My thinking goes along the lines of this: *either it's all okay, or none of it's okay.* I am pleasantly surprised that these famous etudes are in fact playable, maybe not realistically playable for a beginner but still. The issue comes, however, in the fact that Czerny as an example has other etudes with even faster tempo markings, also for beginners. The kinds of studies where you are to play them daily, without stopping, and at faster tempos than op 299's famous works. Do you just dismiss those kinds of tempos altogether? Or should an alternative perspective not be considered? Or do you think 30 notes/second is possible to play on Piano, especially on 19th century fortepianos? As I mentioned, no 21 of his op 299 isn't quite 30 notes/second, but it's faster than no 1-4. There are recordings that play quite fast, but the point is it's damn near impossible to find one to tempo (I say damn near because I haven't searched the entire internet for recordings of this piece). I also appreciate the Lang Lang video you shared, I actually forgot I had seen it many times before! I would argue that playing chromatic scales at fast speeds is technically actually easier than straight scales, but that's a moot point ;) I will not deny that, say, 15 notes a second is possible to play. Sacrilegious flight of the bumblebee guy proves this as well as Lang Lang here (I haven't sought the video you mentioned specifically, but I will trust you on this). But it's not ridiculous to note that these are exceptional players, correct? (maybe not sacrilegious boi but to each their own). Perhaps there was a more artistic reason for Lang Lang to not play Op 299 no 1 for his Piano Book album to speed after all, at a very very fast rate of I think 14 notes/second or something - although it really does seem to me like he plays as fast as he can there, which again I might argue that scales are technically more challenging to play extensively versus chromatic scales. Regardless, thank you for sharing. I have some other issues with the videos you shared. What puzzles me incredibly is that you mentioned Bernhard Ruchti playing the Hammerklavier intro to tempo, and so I looked his RUclips channel up as you said you can find it there. To my surprise, the only thing to do with that sonata and him playing is him performing according to Franz Liszt's performance duration, reported to be about an hour for the entire thing. Bernhard plays that intro at a much slower tempo than what most current performers play! Why did you share this with me? I appreciate you sharing him as a Pianist, but I am confused as to what you were trying to prove or demonstrate there...he does not play the intro remotely close to the literal interpretation of the tempo marking. If anything, he supports the idea of the double-beat interpretation. With the Artur Schnabel example as well...he plays very fast, that's true, but again...he does not play to tempo, as you yourself said. That is my original point with my request. This further begs the question...if Franz Liszt's performance was closer to an hour than 40 minutes, which is the average performance now and like the one you provided, was Liszt playing at a ridiculously slow tempo? Because if the story is true that Hector Berlioz was there to witness him playing it, and praised his performance as the ultimate perfect interpretation including to do with tempo changes not being permitted, then how does this make sense? What do you think of that? Now, I have to ask. What is your musical experience? Because I cannot tell where you are coming from when it comes to discussion of musical concepts like tempo, pulse etc. Pulse is absolutely related to tempo. I cannot be bothered trying to explain further, until you explain where you're coming from or unless you want me to. I appreciate you letting me know that you followed Wim previously for many years, only to get banned from his channel or something? I stand corrected, there. Seems Wim has some issues with contrary opinions. Although, I have certainly seen responses he's made to people asking genuine questions...perhaps he has changed his behaviour since when you were banned, then. I will watch the double beat fallacy video, thank you for suggesting it. Please note that I am not interested in purely defending one opinion over another, I am just genuinely questioning some assumptions about performance practice but am very much open to information being provided that shows clear solutions. Confusingly, some of your demonstrations go against what you say yourself, but regardless, thank you for responding and I hope you have a good day!
@@andreasvandieaarde ‘One gripe I have with that particular no 1-3 video is the suggestion that with "reasonable Piano technique," these "easy Czerny etudes" are possible to be played to those speeds. To me, that dismisses the frankly unrealistic speeds that you have to hit for what I think “ I have to agree here. Op 299 is definitely for advanced pianists if you intend to hit the target speed. Czerny has composed an incredible number of etudes and exercises and for instance op 599 is specifically composed for beginners and one could immediately see the huge difference between the 2 books. For any reason, Wim Winters has propagated the idea that a beginner should be able to play op 299 sight reading it which is pure non sense. If you want to reach a fast tempo, you will have to practice an impressive number of hours. ‘either it's all okay, or none of it's okay.’ Not necessarily as you have to bear in mind that there were a lot editing and printing errors at the time, as typewriters didn’t exist yet so editors had to work from manuscripts. Most composers will check thoroughly major work ( sonatas, symphonies…) but it is obvious that Czerny or Isidor Phillip editions contains mistakes in some exercises . For instance in the famous ‘Exercices for the Higher Pianoforte Technic’ from I.Phillip you can find exercises exceeding 50 notes/sec , even if double beat was true , it would be unplayable in double beat. And no I don’t believe you can play 30 notes/sec. On the Hammerklavier Ruchti had made 2, 3 videos on the Hammerklavier in one of them, he explains why he choose his slow tempo and demonstrate the opening in single beat to prove he could play it if he wanted too Regarding the Hammerklavier , also worth noting that if you watch the video that Wim Winters had made on the subject called ‘Liszt's 1836 Hammerklavier Version: Proving the Impossible Possible?’ He states that 1st movement in single beat should last 8.34 minutes obviously stating it is not possible to achieve . You can find Friedrich Gulda 1970 recording in 7:48, Yvonne lefebure 1973 recording 8:16 all even faster than Wim radical view on the subject!! On the pulse matter If you start learning jazz, you will grab the concept very quickly, in fact in classical music school , rhythm and related concepts is usually poorly taught , so you have an excuse . Polyrhythms are hell for a lot of classical pianists for this reason .To clarify the relation between pulse and tempo is that tempo is the speed at which the pulse is beating. But pulse is more complex than it seems .When pulses are played with variously accented phrases, this can produce several pulse groups such as strong-weak and strong-weak-weak,. In other words, they are close but also different. But in all cases in you divide the tempo by 2 the end result is that the individual pulse or the group of pulse will be played twice slower . You asked the question about my experience, after graduating in a musical conservatory in early 2000 I chose to move from classical to jazz and have learned my life playing in jazz clubs and then stopped to work in a recording studio. But I still love classical a lot and play most days. Have a good day too and good luck with learning piano 🎹 it is the best thing in life .
OK. So why are you not playing the music you talked about up to the metronome speed? I would be happy to hear you you do that. Secondly, its not playing TWICE as slow, in fact it is way more than half. But the key thing is to hear yo play the Chopin studies up to the noted metronome markings as interpreted today.
Hello Dennis thanks for taking time and sharing your question. I can't accept it I'm afraid, as it is precisely what I label in this video as 'walking to the end of the earth to discover whether it is flat'.
Sorry to interrupt , but your comment doesn't make sense to me. Do you need to have a diploma in astronomy or physic to argue with flat earthers? Are you even capable of playable all Chopin's work in double beat to make the call ? Apparently some bars of concerto 2 are not even playable in double beat if you want to respect the metronome 100%. All of Chopin etudes have been played at speed and for sure only top professional pianist are able to do it , same applies to Liszt transcendental etudes. So what ? Are you able to do a tennis first serve as fast as Djokovic ? 99.99% of tennis players cannot. You can as well pretend this is fake and all his videos have been accelerated. In other words, we are inclined to admit that extraordinary performances exist in sport, in chess or other disciplines , but for any reasons double beaters would love to believe that such level of 'virtuosity' doesn't exist in music.
@@Md-cl6lh Thanks so much for your comment. I'll just answer it personally if that's OK! On this channel my own ethics are - I won't talk about a particular stretch of music in detail, unless I have felt it under my fingers. I think in a world of fake news that's fair. But I don't feel the need to do this when I just mention pieces in passing.
@@VladVexler Point taken, nevertheless , I strongly believe that Wim Winters theory can be debunked solely with thought experience as it has inherent contradictions and impossibilities that cannot be resolved.
@@Md-cl6lh I think we don’t even need that. All we need is to tell the difference between being completely and utterly nuts and not being completely and utterly nuts! 😎 Plus I actually think Wim is less sincere than people think.
I wonder if you have read the excellent book called ‘truth and truthfulness’ by Sir Bernard Arthur Owen Williams , English philosopher. If you haven’t’ , I highly recommend it , I read it during my holidays . In a nutshell , the author explains the mechanism by which the legitimate need to ensure that the information and knowledge transmitted by institutions can be trusted leads to conspiracy even in the absence of any source invalidating this knowledge. Sir Williams died in 2006 , but whoever reads that book will bet that he was referring to Wim Winters ahead of time !
Yes hee hee I am an expert in that book. Bernard died in June 2003. My work is continuous with his. And my PhD work was on his great friend Isaiah Berlin. Bernard rushed TT, because he was dying. So the book would have taken a slightly different shape if he had more time. My latest Nietzsche video is very much in Bernard's spirit, by the way! I will be doing a couple of very long episodes on Bernard on this channel in the near future! It's so wonderful you have read and valued TT!
I think you are oversimplifying what Win Winters says. E g. He is not saying that you should cut by half every music sheet tempo. For example, as nobody plays a Czseny study in the metronomic tempo written on the sheet, the resulting tempo could be a 70%/80% speed of tenpo you are used to hear. Secondly, he does not criticize common tempi, so he is not saying that playing at common speed is wrong. He just says that there are chances that, hiatorically, may be playing speeds were inferior than today. It's the whole world that went through furios acceleration of everybody lives during last centuries. Just think about comunications, travels, distances... everything. Think about what was Bach life. Everything was slow and there were no expectations in delivery times. That's also why Bach and others were so prolific: they didn't have to run, run endlessly through hundreds of things daily, and didn't have internet, so they could focus and take their time. So its not that unreasonable to think that playing speeds where also less demanding. It makes sense. Your point about the fact tempo isn't all, but just one part is good.
As a newb I enjoy the debate. Nobody knows the answer and neither do I enjoy the debate in that respect. It adds some drama to the classical music world and night draw in more people. It could be a gimmick but i don't mind. I enjoy the intellectual debate and the music. I've listened to music I would never have heard and been asked a simple question. . Which tempo do you prefer. Quite often I enjoy the slower... The majestic bits sound majestic, the bouncy bits sound bouncy. Also some of wims interpretations sound very convincing... The metronome one in particular. Also I don't think you answered the question of unplayable tempo indications... If the tempo is unplayable then it is not up for interpretation... It is unplayable... That said I am a newb. Thanks for the vid
Understand you are new to the debate . You will realise soon that in fact there is no debate . Wim Winters entertain the idea of a debate when there isn’t one . All scholars ans anyone who has done a bit of research on the subject are unanimous on the subject. Double beat is a fallacy , it has been proposed initially by Talsma in 1980 , was debunked . Lorenz Gadient and Wim Winters have tried to resurrect the dead body but have faced the same rebuttal. Note that the main driver behinds Wim Winters approach is essentially commercial because at the moment ( for how long?) he is making a living out of it. The question of score unplayability is not really relevant to the debate . It represent less than 1 /1000 of scores in the 19th century , the proportion of unplayable tempi is even higher in the 20th century , so it is not a relevant argument. Moreover what Wim winters considered unplayable ( czerny op 299 , Chopin études op10 and op25) have been played at speed and are available on RUclips) . The worst part of the whole story is that he has banned all people proving he was wrong on his channel and removed all links proving he is wrong . I’m sorry to put it that way , but he is just a scammer.
Yes, agreed that Wim Winters music videos look aesthetically gorgeous. Good audio too. And back when he played I think, the Bach English Suites on his Clavichord, I was hooked. But when he moved to Beethoven sonatas and Chopin Ballades at half tempo (or less), that was clearly absurd. But I can't help thinking that if you play something like a Mozart sonata super - slow, it's a bit like a pianist getting started with it by practising at that tempo. One then notices features in the music that may not pop out at full tempo. Works for the uninitiated in the audience too. Works well for keyboard players because they don't run out of bow or run out of breath. The difference is that we don't stay at that tempo forever. That also makes me think perhaps that Wim's technical abilities may conveniently benefit from his "revolutionary" approach.
All the dislikes show how Wim Winter’s fans can only react in superficial ways and can’t engage deeply enough to start a debate in the comments, where they’re basically absent
Had the same feeling about that. In fact it is a clear illustration of the fact that they don’t want to be proven they are wrong so anything adverse to their belief is considered as an ´enemy’ . It is a reaction that is found in all sects or cults.
Hee hee but you know, history will wash away Wim's idea quite rapidly. So I don't really feel it as a threat. So I am not sad about a lack of constructive conversation. Moreover, people do get something out of his channel. In fact quite a lot!
Have you debunked that pieces from the school of velocity are impossible to play in single beat for the MM markings of Czerny, either by the composers or his editions of other Composer music? Have you addressed contemporary single escapement Viennese fortepianos incapable of repetition of the same note in single beat? Or that the majority of Pianists do not play 100% at single beat but somewhere around 70%. Or that even Valentina Lisitsa at her fastest cannot exceed 90% Czerny's MM indications (in single beat) for the Inventions of J S Bach, even on a modern piano. Those are items that I've seen raised on the Authentic Sound Channel. I've read Bachscholar's comments, but he never addressed Burgmüller: Harmony of the Angels, Op. 100 No. 21 sounds more like the devil at single beat, he doesn't play at single beat in his video, and when one of the replies as to speed for the piece wasn't single beat. I would like to hear your thoughts.
For your info, Massimiliano Genot has recorded op 299 on fortepiano at tempo. Fair to say it does attract views. The main reason you don't see the big boys spending time on op 299 is that it is not really concert material. Also Alberta Sanna in his hammerklavier video deviates from the double beat tempo by a huge factor in various places, so how comes ?
@Alan Stuppel Have you heard the Burgmuller Piece L'Harmonie Des Ange played in single beat? I do not say it's impossible to play, but it doesn't sound anything like the Harmony of Angels, unless fallen angels. At MM 1/4=152
@@P.Robert-m8r To my knowledge, any of Czerny's exercises with repeated notes in fast tempi, cannot be performed in single beat on a Viennese Forte Piano's single escapement action. I wasn't discussing Alberto Sanna's Beethoven. Thank you for alerting me to Massimiliano Genot, however, without exception so far, including Lang Lang hasn't hit the actual the number of notes per second. This RUclips video raises the issue that in single beat in Czerny's other exercises, the 20 notes per second (not possible on a Steinway). ruclips.net/video/W9-AjeeBfaU/видео.html&ab_channel=AuthenticSound Individuals who claim single beat performance generally are less than the speed.
@Alan Stuppel If you have time compare Hans Bischoff's Tempi MM numbers for the inventions (circa mid 1880s) vs Czerny's tempi and MM numbers from his edition. I have a graph of both that I would be happy to share. If there's a way to IM through RUclips, I can supply this. Invention V: Where Czerny has 1/4= 144 Allegro vivace, vs. and Bischoff list 1/4=72 Allegretto espressivio. If we for the sake of argument have Czerny as a Double Beater and Bischoff single beater, then Czerny's concept mid century of Allegro Vivace has slowed in three decades to a slower Allegretto before 1888. I don't know your concepts of aesthetics, however heavenly depiction of angels playing harps is more toward the slower side than towards speed metal interpretation. FYI Bachscholar's speed, faster than most is pleasant, but it isn't single beat. ruclips.net/video/LsbcYI96a3U/видео.html&ab_channel=BachScholar
@@Renshen1957 First of all, you haven't properly checked the timing of each individual piece. If you take op 299/1 as an example, the video length of Genot is 30 secondes but the playing time is less than 25 secondes, 100% on tempo. Secondly ,I am sure you know that first fortepiano with double escapement was released by Erard in 1823, and I am also certain you know that Czerny's Op 299 was first published in 1833 , i.e. 10 years after, so the limitation regarding repeated notes is irrelevant in this context. As a general guideline I would not recommend using Authentic Sound videos for valid information , they are usually full of mistakes , misinterpretations and erroneous historical statements. The comment I made about the Hammerklavier version was in response to your comment about modern musicians not playing all bars at tempo . Of course they don''t ! No serious musician plays music like a midi file. Even Czerny in op 500 recommends to slow down tempo in some passages when required technically or when required musically. And Alberto Sanna does the same in double beat. More generally some interpreters take huge liberty in their playing when it comes to tempo. Gould being probably a good example, capable of playing scores much slower in some cases and capable at the same time of playing pieces at reckless speed. So this not strictly related to the adherence to a particular strict tempo system but about personal choices.
Thank you, yes, that's a difference of style or sensibility. This video is more about sensibility, and less about sense. I will be sharing one more dose of commentary on Wim in 2022. With some new thoughts. But that too won't be argument for and against, but an exploration of how musical traditions endure. Hope you are well around the holiday period.
@@PbPomper Wim's closed-minded, deliberate, intolerant, and unmusical attacks on aesthetic and historical truths deserve only mockery and contempt. Music is a very serious thing; and methodical attacks on its life-force must be treated harshly. Wim's assertions, to any true musician, are not matters for discussion or of opinion: rather, they fall outside of both musical and scholarly discourse. He who does not know Music may have difficulty understanding this: understandable though this may be, it does not grant such individuals a moral right to participate in any meaningful discussion of the Wim Winters phenomenon. No one has the right to debate quantum mechanics unless he has mastered the underlying math and physics; and Music is no diffferent in this respect. It is axiomatic that anyone who can accept Wim's style of performance as valid outside of the practice room is no true musician. That's just the way it is.
I have decided that when a composer puts an impossible tempo on their piece, they are just telling you to play it as fast as you can (clearly) and dont over think it.
Sometimes I love to take shortcuts. In this case that means: listen to Beethoven playing his own pieces. Impossible? No! Carl Czerny was a composer, teacher and one of Beethoven's pupils. He knew how fast or slow to play his masters music for sure. Otherwise Mr. B. would have slapped him on the head or even worse. Franz Liszt was a pupil of Czerny and was known as a very strict teacher. We do have audio recordings from some of Liszt's pupils. E.g. Emil von Sauer playing LvB Op. 27 No. 2, a tiny bit faster than the average performance today, but well within the well known and generally accepted range. Or Frederik Lamond, who studied with Hans von Bülow (also a student of Franz Liszt), Clara Schumann and Franz Liszt. Lamond gave us recordings of LvB sonatas no. 8, 12 14, 17, 23, 57 and probably some more. All tempi meet modern standards. Double beat theory is not even a theory. It's a silly claim that those who know it quasi from the horse's mouth are all wrong. History confirms and complements Vlad's excellent thoughts.
Breaking news: Alberto's authentic performance of Beethoven's Hammerklavier which began last year has just reached the development section of the 1st mvt.
That is FAST!!!!
Rofl
Lol...so fast?
This just in: premier of Beethoven’s 3rd symphony and Eberl’s 1st just finished! Audiences favor the Eberl!, Beethoven’s having taken too long...
Alert The New York Times!
😎🎹
If you would like to talk directly, follow me on CLUBHOUSE, where I will be hosting classical music chats soon!
📌 TIMESTAMPS!
00:00 How Wim Winters changed human history via his genius double beat theory.
02:10 How Pianopat critiqued Wim Winters on his own terms.
2:52 Can you debate flat earthers?
04:10 Alfred Brendel and Isaiah Berlin
05:38 Why there is no such thing as 'tempo research'
06:45 The most basic thing Wim's theory misconceives about classical music
08:10 Artur Schnabel on interpretation
12:30 The period performance movement
15:40 Wim Winters on Hammerklavier Sonata tempo
19:20 Overruling a composer's tempo indications
21:28 Why do people like Wim Winters?
play the video at .25 speed it will make a lot more sense
I think .0025 could be even better !!!
This stuff reminds me of that one Bach pianist a few years back who had come up with some "secret key" to understanding the exact tempo that Bach had in mind for every single piece based on his calculations of measure numbers and some sort of presumed symmetry that arises from that. It's all fun mind games I suppose but I'll play Bach how I feel the music needs to be played, not how some random guy's theory says it needs to be played.
Never thanked you for your comment. Thank you! Very interesting, what you share, and perhaps a similar pathology to double beat!
In our somehow confusing times, it appears to me that many people like to believe truth has been stolen from them and they will cheer whoever claims to have it back.
Fantastic comment!
Spot on!
Apart from the fact wether Wim Winters tempi are "correct" or not, the only thing you hear in his interpretations IS tempo, or rather, his insane obsession with tempo. We all know Glenn Gould plays Bach too fast and Beethovens Appassionata too slow but at least there's something happening. Wim Winters interpretations are non-events so to speak, at best they have the ability to amuse someone who is already familiar with a particular work and by accident now and then emphasize a chord or melody that would escape the attention in "conventional" interpretations.
Dont agree. Besides his theory, he is a gifted performer nevertheless, I especially enjoyed the clementi works and the early beethoven sonatas he recorded. At least dont give your opinion on things you clearly don´t understand: musicality.
@@eintroll8792how can you enjoy a performance that is devoid of joy?
@@Pablo-gl9dj Tempo is the last thing that makes up the music. Educate yourself.
@@eintroll8792 educate myself?
I didn't intend to upset your sensitive nature but since I did you can use it as a learning opportunity.
First thing to learn is that music without a pulse is dead music.
What I don't know is whether Wim Winters is serious or whether he has discovered a (cynical) ay to get publicity and make money?
This is probably one of the best videos addressing Wim.
Really appreciate you watching! Looking forward to sharing more classical music content soon!
@Florencia Brodt Brodt? More like bot
@Dalton Kade Kade? More like shuttup you dumb spammers
"I learned long ago never to wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it." G B Shaw.
Can you imagine a music teacher of the 19th century telling a student, "Now to determine the proper tempo, at the top of the page when you see quarter note equals 100, set the metronome at 100 and you will hear 100 ticks per minute. But remember, that is the speed of the eighth note, not the quarter note. The number will always refer to the speed of the note with half the time value of the note given on the score." The student laughs and says. "Why don't they just write eighth note equals 100?" The teacher then scolds the student for being impudent and gives him Hanon exercises to do for 3 hours.
Seriously, shouldn't there be some kind of publication from the era for students, explaining such a counterintuitive way of documenting tempo?
Lots of interesting question to ask Wim!!!! I’m making a second, stronger, video on Wim in 2022! Again, it will be constructive beyond Wim- not just a take down.
If you are not a music student or anything, then I completely understand your thinking - I understand it anyway. Allow me to suggest a way of thinking about it.
Think about a time signature's literal notation. When you see 4/4, you're not reeally seeing 4 quarter notes in a bar. You're seeing 4 overarching beats that, the majority of the time, gets subdivided into smaller note values. You learn to do this from the very beginning when you learn to play music. If this were not the case, then Fur Elise or Bach's keyboard invention in D minor would not be written in 3/8, but 6/16, which is technically a valid time signature, but makes it ironically kinda counterintuitive to read. If we learn to subdivide time signatures from the word go, then what is actually so weird about subdividing tempo markings? Just something to consider, have a good day!
@@andreasvandieaarde "Subdividing tempo markings" isn't relevant. If we subdivide tempo markings in the way you have done with the time signature that would mean changing "quarter note = 100" to "half note = 50". But that's just another way of stating the same tempo for the quarter note.
"Quarter note = 100" means that the quarter note is assigned the number 100 on the scale of the metronome which is a beats per minute scale so there is no need to write 100 quarter notes "per minute". This is the same as giving a number of miles or kilometers in a reference to the speedometer. It is understood that the hour is the time interval of the speedometer.
Interpreting the tempo designation otherwise (double or whole beat) is so counterintuitive (especially for students) that over the course of a century there would have to have been multiple unambiguous sources clarifying this, as well as sources possibly stating that the method of designation varied by composer, or sources documenting that the meaning of the designation had changed, whether publications or private correspondence. Such sources haven't been found. There are multiple sources describing the use of the metronome as above (single beat).
The root cause of Wim's 'cause celebre' (the double-beat theory) was the public ridicule he suffered at the hands of his conservatory piano teacher upon hearing Wim's slow rendition of Beethoven's opus 81a. Here is the link to Wims video:
ruclips.net/video/tCFgNw_qqVQ/видео.html
One can easily glean from Wim's monologue that he was an organ major and a piano minor. It is clear that he made no pretense to be a piano virtuoso. The teacher laughed at his slow interpretation, causing lasting psychological damage and resentment, as Wim reveals in the video. Thus, it became Wim's life mission to get back at the academy by dreaming up a means to prove that they - the great virtuosi, pedagogues, conductors, and instrumentalists - all play the great masterpieces of the 18th and 19th centuries twice as fast as the composers intended. In truth there is no record of any such performance history proving a gross discrepancy of tempo markings (the ones in words) then and now. Allegro is not and never was Andante, much less Adagio, and so forth. Wim's system has eliminated all fast playing entirely. And the slowest examples are excruciatingly painful to perform or listen to.
The double beat theory that Wim champions has been thoroughly debunked countless times, so I won't go over that here (records of performance times by the composers alone destroys Wim's theory). But it is important to note that Wim's tempi are not simply his personal interpretation or preference, which we are all entitled to have. It is his explicit claim that his tempi are based on valid musicological research; that they are historically correct; and that they are authentically true to the intent of the composers. All of that is false. For that reason, one must cry foul. The artistic integrity of our greatest musical geniuses has been besmirched and dragged through the mud. It is nothing less than a libel against composers who cannot rise from the grave to set him straight. It is also a deliberate slap at our great virtuosi who now have been proven to have committed gross musical errors. Now, thanks to Wim Winters, music has been saved from the charlatans. In reality, all of this has been done for the benefit of one person: Wim Winters. The purpose is to slow everything down, not just a little, but drastically, to make it easier for him to play -- and to achieve lasting revenge against the piano teacher who mocked him for his ludicrous interpretation of op. 81a.
The drivers behind Wim Winters cult like approach are very clear indeed. On the other hand, I have always wondered what could be the rationale behind Lorenz Gadient appetite to publish a book and encourage Wim do convince naive people via social media. At the end of the day, he didn't invent a theory , he just revamped Talsma old theory which was debunked in the eighties, trying to put lipstick on the pig. The only rationale I could find is some attraction for religious esotericism of some sort . I would be interested to have Vlad's option on the subject.
@@Esmer-tp1mh It doesn't matter whether Wim dreamed it up or borrowed it from someone else. The fact remains that Wim was driven for psychological reasons to interfere with history and rewrite it according to his needs. That is both deranged and criminal. It is not surprising that the 'movement' has devolved into a cult; that's the icing on the cake.
@@palladin331 Classic unfulfilled male with chip on shoulder approaching middle age trying desperately to validate his existence. Many such cases.
Some things to keep in mind: The tempo on Hammerklavierronate is not necessarily impossible. There have been some recent attempts that got quite close and much cleaner than Schnabel’s first try. But also: A Beethoven time piano is a completely different thing. Modern pianos are built for volume and a big tone. Early piano music instead used speed. For example on an earlier piano you had to depress the key much less to trigger the action, which means you could not get as much acceleration, but you could play quite fast. Then also: This sonata’s tempo has been discussed as extremely fast from the very beginning, with only Czerny claiming it was very fast, but possible an necesary for the character, while only a bit later the general consense would be that this was too fast. Note that this is also the time when pianos evolved a lot, and when thus the modern image of Beethoven as a monumental composer (rather than a revolutionary) come up, and everything was slowed down and played more grand.
That's false, modern pianos have double escapement which makes for much faster playing than was possible before.
@@gammypage That is correct for fast repetition of the same note (it essentially means that the key does not have to fall back fully to be able to trigger the hammer again, allowing for repetition with less key movement (although having a lower action height does also help with that one)). But please elaborate how the heck double escapement is going to help you play say a scale faster?
@@TheVoitel I really don't know, perhaps I spoke with too much certainty being honest. I'll leave it to you sorry cheers.
Please see Wim Winters' last video : SHOCKING stats on Beethoven's Hammerklavier sonata ruclips.net/video/qqxluubosZM/видео.html.
At 3:14 he says that the tempo set by Czerny in his Opus 299 are impossible to play. So he implies that Czerny's metronome indications was double beat.
But at 7:50 he quotes that Czerny said that Beethoven's tempo for his sonata is too fast and difficult to achieve. So it means that Czerny took Beethoven's metronome marking as single beat.
This is completely incoherent!
You do not understand-when an idea is so absurd as to be beneath contempt, sometimes sarcasm and ridicule are the best ways to combat it. The bottom line is that “whole-beat” performances sound like bloody Hell. The fact that they are completely unsupported by historical evidence is almost beside the point. Metronome numbers are inherently suspect on general principles, as any true musician will testify. Vlad Vexler is absolutely correct.
Even supposing for a moment that the textual evidence is equivocal on the double-beat theory, there is a problem. It is not a coincidence that a 'moderato' tempo corresponds to about 60 beats per minute, which is also about the rate of the human heartbeat, and theorists have recognized this in relation to the notion of the 'tactus'. 'Allegro' sounds fast, not because it is “absolutely” fast, but because it is fast in relation to a moderate, or comfortable, tempo. And the same consideration applies to 'adagio'. Which is to say that these tempos are not arbitrary or a matter of convention, but of human physiology. Winters' tempos sound absurdly slow because they really are too slow. That is, unless Winters wants to argue that people in the nineteenth-century were biologically different from us.
Also there is a very strong link between music and language. Language does naturally imply melody, tempo and rhythm, and in the past composers were not only aware of this, but actively combining music with rhethorics. Thus you get music with a certain declamatory, speaking quality. This matters particularly with vocal music, where of course the music and the language would optimally work together rather than against themselves. Take for example Schuberts Erlkönig - at notated speed the language feels really natural. At half speed - well, it is essentially like speaking really really slowly.
@@TheVoitel Excellent point. Someone has also remarked that Beethoven's vocal works are difficult enough to perform already, but when slowed down breathing becomes a problem.
@@TheGloryofMusic Breathing ... well, there is a lot possible, and with baroque music we are totally used to coloratura lines so long that you simply cannot do it in one breath. But imagine things like the 13 bar suspended high a in the choir soprano in the 9th symphony. Take that at half time, and you’re killing them.
@@TheVoitel I'm not familiar with breath technique in singing. But imagine trying to perform the Sanctus/Benedictus from Beethoven's Missa Solemnis at half-tempo.
If VW is correct then I can finally become the virtuoso I always knew I was😂
You already are.🎉 And without practice.
I really enjoyed your comprehensive, thoroughly philosophical approach on the matter. Kudos!
The majority of people find classical music difficult to understand, which is why "Classical Relaxation" compilations (full of slow tempos) are so popular. People who like Wim's slushy romantic re-interpretations (which is basically what they are) are likely never going to appreciate piano music at its intended tempo, unless it's composed by Ludovic Enaudi and/or performed on an iceberg.
I think there is a lot in what you say. But then the question comes - is eating shit ice cream better or worse than eating no ice cream at all?
@@VladVexler Brother you are unhinged and violent.
My question to Wim was, ‘at which point did composers start using the metronome in the way we have always used it?’ I have just recorded the Piano Sonata from Frank Bridge and the recording of Myra Hess with Bridge’s approval, proves his metronome markings as accurate. So where did the reading of metronome markings become what we understand them to be? No answer!
Congratulations on the recording! Wonderful you have recorded Bridge’s Piano sonata. Ha ha what do you think is Wim’s best evasion tactic to your question?
@@VladVexler I've just asked him again!
In fact this only question kills the theory . As a matter of fact , there must have been a genesis, in other words , a first score written with single beat intention .Assuming double beat was the norm , the author or editor would have without a doubt added a comment or instructions telling how to interpret the metronome markings in a way which was radically different . The paradox doesn’t apply to one particular scores but to all scores written in the same period . Good luck to anyone trying to find it 😄, you may have more chances to find life on Mars .
@@mktsound8240 much more chance of life on Mars, as I will argue in my next vid on Wim in 2022
@@VladVexler without a doubt! Can’t wait for your next video on the matter .
I listened to a very good interview of Conductor Riccardo Chailly talking about the tempo of the 1st movement of Beethoven 5th Symphony . The video is called 'Riccardo Chailly - Beethoven Symphonies 4-6 (interview)
The very interesting tempo narrative starts at 2:58
Video watch?v=dml0Q-lIrPo
His performance of the symphony can be found here watch?v=S5K3cScsYLg
Thanks so much for sharing - I hadn't seen the interview before and just watched.
Someone remarked that the bird calls in Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony don't sound like the actual thing, given Winter's tempo ruclips.net/video/qV-N3Luf9mE/видео.htmlsi=HOLggZCPY3ndw3K7 Thomas Huxley referred to "the slaying of a beautiful theory by an ugly fact".
This is one of those videos that justifies the existence of RUclips-an absolutely brilliant exposition with more philosophical implications than you can shake a stick at. Thank you!
Dear Dan, I hope you are keeping safe. I am still learning this platform and I plan to share a great deal more about music. I value your time and generosity of attention very much. Thank you. I plan to make time to listen to your work - happy to be guided by you about where I should go first.
@@VladVexler
Dear Vlad,
I am honored and flattered by your kind words. Concerning my compositions, may I suggest the following as starters:
Fantasia in G Major for Harpsichord or Fortepiano, etc. (2018), ruclips.net/video/pdSO5pedtc0/видео.html
Sonata in G Major for Violin or Oboe and Harpsichord or Fortepiano (1994, 2009), ruclips.net/video/lkzRXSveLSw/видео.html
String Quartet in D Minor, in memoriam Otto Luening (1996); recorded live performance, ruclips.net/video/TWGaqovN3Mk/видео.html
Sonata in G Major, in one movement, for harpsichord of fortepiano (2018) ruclips.net/video/BV_7YmYuul4/видео.html
Quartet inD Major for Flute, Violin, Viola, and Cello (2015) ruclips.net/video/WaXlCwLfV4Y/видео.html
Symphony for Strings in F major (2008) ruclips.net/video/cjdRCx3YCSA/видео.html
Concerto in D Minor for Harpsichord of Fortepiano and Strings (2009) ruclips.net/video/eQSzsuuI8E8/видео.html
Sonata in D Minor for Flute and Harpsichord or Fortepiano (1994) ruclips.net/video/M-LItX10LAM/видео.html
Trio Sonata in B major for Flute or Violin, Oboe d’Amore or Violin, and Basso Continuo (1997) ruclips.net/video/N67Pr-gzqAQ/видео.html
Pavan in G Minor in memoriam Bernard Krainis ruclips.net/video/y_H7QwkBLk8/видео.html
I look forward to studying your RUclips postings.
With best wishes,
Dan
@@danielwaitzman2118 Dear Dan thank you so much for guiding me so generously. I may take my time listening through, but I will listen with great concentration. Hope you are doing OK. Talk soon! Vlad
Sadly RUclips has become the place for ad-hominem attacks, rather than of empirical discussion. As Vlad's video shows. 100% of the useful remarks in this video could have been made without resorting to such ad-hominem attacks. Social media has become a vehicle for the worst traits of human nature, unfortunately, and sophisticated musicians aren't free from those traits.
@@lindasegerious9248 Obviously you have no idea of how utterly poisonous and destructive to musical excellence Wim Winters’ theories really are. I fear that you are closed to any exploration of their destructiveness, of which you will find several on RUclips-notably this video by Vlad Vexler. Far from engaging in “ad hominem attacks,” Mr. Vexler has actually been the soul of politesse in his treatment of this matter. Winters is guilty of lies, distortions, and personal invective; the number of present-day musicians of superb attainment whom he has insulted is almost too numerous to count. His teachings are an affront to all who have devoted their lives to Music. At the same time, his own playing is dull past description; he bans those with whom he disagrees from his channel, as well as those who offer evidence disproving his “theories.” He continues to mislead well-intentioned music-lovers, and thus to strike blow after blow at the very fabric off musical culture itself. Do you wonder why Winters’ critics tend to be up in arms about his mendacious preachings? Incidentally, if you peruse his most recent videos, you get a picture of a man who seems on the verge of a nervous breakdown-not a pretty picture. I do not know what, if any, are your musical qualifications to hold forth on the subject of Wim Winters; but I hope, for your sake, that you may eventually recognize him for what he is-a scam artist and a fraud.
Great video! Very timely as today we were blessed to hear the results of Wim's greatest proponent's ground-breaking research in his presenting us with Old Man Tempest, authentically reconstructed with his long-forgotten broken leg...not what I expected from a storm of such violent intensity but then again the forces of nature were much different back then, on account of climate change and all...
I think even deeper research would have yielded an ever longer 31 no 2. Perhaps one played over several days - with players taking turns to allow for sleep! I actually think a video like that would go viral! Thank you so much for watching and commenting.
Is the recording already over? 😁
@@vito-lattarulo he is raising more funds through patreon to build a special server to record this performance.
@@benjaminachron1493 😂
I heard they have been recording Beethoven’s 9th symphony since three months straight and those who made all those videos in the meantime were just lookalikes.. 😅
Perfectly pointed the most important.... great video!!! You are a real musician with heart , understanding, interest and intelligence.
Thanking you to taking the time and leaving a comment. Hope you are safe!
That’s such a generous comment to leave! Thanks so much. I hope you are safe at this time!
Another question: how divorced are we from Beethoven - can't we trace direct lines of teaching from Beethoven to day? Could our understanding of tempi be so far off, given the pedigree?
Yes we can . Most famous pupil from Beethoven was Czerny . Most famous pupil from Czerny was Liszt and we have a lot of piano rolls recordings from Liszt pupils , all of them being on RUclips . All piano rolls are in traditional single beat, most of the time faster than what we hear today ( the idea that music accelerated in the 20th century is a pure invention) , which gives you a very strong indication that double beat is a pure fantasy built on sand .
When the war is over I will make a video explaining why we couldn’t be as far off as Wim thinks. Not that we aren’t, but that we couldn’t be. In other words, that Wim’s conspiracy is incompatible with the existence of music as an art form. Which makes his conspiracy useful to talk about.
This morning I started to write a comment on your video to tell you that you are just brilliant, and you are absolutely right!!!..since I wrote it in double bit...., I only reached the end of my comment that day next at dawn.
Ha ha ha ! Very beautiful thank you - this video is getting a bit old so there will be a new discussion at Wim’s expense in early 2022!
I don't know you Vlad Vexler ... but this goes reallyyyyyyy deep ... it's at such a high level of spirituality, philosophy and musicology that I even think that some people will not understand what you're saying... but of course very well done ... I congratulates you with making this video , one full of deep and interesting thoughts... I also like your humor... this is a video you need to see multiple times to really get it ... very nice
What a kind comment. Thanks so much! Hoping you are safe at this time and regarding a couple of your recent videos - do know that your English delivery is absolutely fantastic !
Finally someone making a Video about it!
For me Wim is just an conspiracy theorist.
There are so many things that proof him wrong... I asked him why Beethovens hammerklavier was said to be impossible to play until liszt played it. According to wim all pianist were too bad to play thaz piece at only half the tempo we play it today. Hillarious. He never answered this question
And another question I asked and never got explained... why all people forgot how metronomes work? Why did EVERYONE in the world played everything twice as fast? There is no answer because they always played fast.
He is just crazy and I feel bad for all the People who believe him
oh I never thanked you for watching and for your comment! I really appreciate you time, albeit I might be a drop softer on Wim than you!!
Why bother debunking this nonsense? It merely gives it more exposure. Bad publicity is still publicity.
Thanks so much for taking time and for your comment! I couldn't agree more. I didn't think of this video as a debunking - I'm rather exploring how things go right and how they go wrong when we engage with music. Does that make sense?
Hi Vlad,
Bravo for the video and happy new year!
You added quite a few interesting points to the discussion on the widely debunked double beat theory, or _whole beat practice_ , as Wim likes to call it.
May I add a couple of considerations?
First, we will never be able to “reproduce” anything from the past for the simple reason that the listeners themselves are not the same. We could even have Beethoven explaining exactly how to play every aspect of a piece in an irrefutable way, and still these two centuries between him and us will make the experience unreconstructable.
Second, since one of the pillars of this pseudo theory is the misreading of Mersenne’s prescription of the falsely called _double second_ , then the double beat should actually be doubled again. Quadruple beat is the exact description of Gadient’s/Wim’s nonsense.
Quarter note = 80 (beats per minute) would mean Quarter note = 40 (beats per minute), but since 1 minute = 2 minutes, the final result is actually Quarter note = 20!
Not only that!
Since the frequency of the notes is counted by putting in relation vibrations with time, even the height of the notes should be doubled!
Quadruple beat and an octave higher! This would actually be the most consistent way of applying Wim’s rules (and Gadient’s etc. etc.).
Maybe you could do an experiment by playing an Adagio four times slower and an octave higher. Just to feel what a true “tempo reconstruction” would sound like 😅
Happy New Year Vito! Thanks so much for your time and thoughts. Your first thought is very important and it's something I will discuss in a separate video. How is the musical imagination of 2020 different to the musical imagination of 1818? We are human beings who have heard and experienced things which our ancestors did not. This is a big conversation in Opera, but it is rarely discussed well in absolute music. Ironically, some of the most limited discussions of this have occurred in the period performance world.
@@VladVexler Absolutely! It’s like watching the first Star Wars in the Pixar era. It always needs some adapting.
Interesting approach to the subject and fundamentally good points. You make the same point as I do in my rant on the same subject about the extraordinarily ‘fast’ existences of most of the composers being discussed, giving the lie to the ’relaxed slow old times’ romanticised view of the past of which Double Beat Theory seems to me to be just another example.
Hello dear David. Thank you for your words and I hope you are safe at this time. I think your excellent video approached the subject more directly, whereas this one is more indirect, perhaps using Wim as a conversation starter. Warm wishes!
@@VladVexler Best wishes to you, too. Yes, mine is more direct, but there is now a wide range of video responses to Wim, that range from the comic to the profound. I do like your comparison with 'bishop research' - pointing out the fundamental absurdity of Wim's invention of a field of 'tempo research'.
Good to have a platform to offer alternative views to on this interesting topic, ( I’m shadow banned on A.S. Channel as are many others who have contributed alternative views). I think some essential points need to be emphasised here. The metronome is the ‘holy grail’ for A.S. Performances which is interpreted contrary to Maelzel’s own instructions I.e 2 ticks of the metronome represents 1 beat of the music according to their theory, not each tick as Maelzel clearly explains. This is the basis of the whole A.S. ‘Research ‘. This means the number of the note value given will be halved in the M.M. Also the use of the sustain pedal, unless marked, is considered ‘taboo’ even though we know Beethoven used the pedal far more than he indicated (Czerny). We can analyse all of these technicalities but what should be the guiding factor is what we hear &, like all exceptional creative works there is a ‘mystical’ element indescribable in words. In music I would say this is communicated through structured emotional spontaneity . Clementi stated that when Beethoven’s playing became rough through his deafness he nevertheless always played with spirit. This is the essence of music & is unfortunately missing on the A. S. Channel which has reduced great works of art to a pedantic, academic exercise.
Thank you for visiting this channel and for your comment. I am sorry you have been shadow banned by Wim - although perhaps you feel you are not missing out on much anyway! As you can tell from this video, I am not worried about Wim brainwashing innocent music lovers, but I am keen that we make sense of our musical world in all its absurdity! Hope you are safe and well at this time.
How would you reconcile your idea of the piece over-determining the performance, with something like Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, where the performance came before the piece and therefore could not have been determined by it at all?
In his correspondence with the performers who were preparing for the London premiere of the Ninth symphony, Beethoven stated that the duration of the work should not exceed forty-five minutes. Even if the metronome marks are followed and repeats in the scherzo are ignored, a performance of this work would last far longer than three quarters of an hour. Following Mr Winters' hypothesis, the Ninth symphony would last between two-and-a-half and three hours, thus contradicting Beethoven's express instructions.
Well as you sense from the video, I don't think feel a huge need to get involved in disproving Wim's claims directly, and in so far as we do get involved in that, I think the scores themselves are enough. Together with the idea that tempo can't be severed from other properties of a piece!
I actually calculated the durations of the 9th from the metronome marks and got 56.7 minutes with the repeats in the scherzo and 51 without them
To add to my last comment I have just discovered that a loyal follower of ‘authentic sound ‘ channel has suggested to Daniel Barenboim, on his channel, that he might learn something about Beethoven sonatas from Wim Winters ! The absolutely deluded world that these ‘authentic sound cult followers’ are living in is unbelievable as is their false sense of importance . The ridiculesness of this comment can be found on :-
‘Daniel Barenboim & Giuseppe Mentuccia on Beethoven ‘s piano sonatas’. (2/4). ( It also suggested on 1/4). Who do these A.S cult followers think they are ? To professional musicians, like myself, they are ‘Ein Musikalischer Spass’.
You know, this is just the beginning. Wim is early. There will increasingly be a world of ‘alternative facts’ in professional classical music. That’s one of several trends I anticipate now till 2050. But optimistically, I think that while these fractures will grow, they will only have limited success at corrupting the work that really matters.
The passage of time only increases one’s appreciation of Vlad Vexler’s genius. This video is a great put-down of a world-historical charlatan, comparable to Quantz’s put-down of von Moldenit.
This is a really good video , as you are debunking Wim Winters fantasy world , with powerful arguments from a different angle.
Wim Winters has constructed a sort of ecosystem which has built-in defence mechanisms against refutation. Concert timings ? Wim refers to what he call's Mersenne second which , according to him, is equal to 2 seconds (the fact that this 'metrical' second never existed is irrelevant, as he uses a dialectic tactic to defend a lie with another lie) . Does that sound musical in double beat ? Wim argues he has 35 k adepts. etc... the list is endless
You brilliantly present another perspective and I think your analogy regarding the fact that tempo research doesn't exist is absolutely spot on. To use a quote from Einstein, I would say that Wim Winters is proposing a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. The fact that 0,0000000001% of metronome markings are impossible to play if you want to play all bars of a score rigorously ( which musically is a heresy) is not a problem related to the 19th century. The same proportion of unplayability exists nowadays with modern composers.
You call Wim's movement a cult and you are right, many people consider it as a sect but etymologically, the cult denomination is more appropriate, with all the negative connotations associated with the term.
Once again, thank you for a very refreshing and well done argumentation. We are sick and tired of all the fake news and the Wim's alike of our time.
Thanks so much for your time and your words - I'm worried about our public life becoming untethered to facts but I'm less concerned about that in art music. You know, the argument you have with Wim's view is an argument you are winning resoundingly. By much the kind of margin you quote above! I was considering doing a direct demolition of Wim's argument, but then reflected that Pianopat had done a terrific job, and felt no need to eviscerate Wim!
Apart from the fact that I agree with many of your remarks in this video: I know quite a lot of period performance musicians. But there is not one who says that research is sufficient for a performance. Off course they all lay great value on interpretation as well. And off course did the composers reckon with the instruments of the day. The bass-thrills of Schuberts B flat pianosonata D960 make much more sense on a Graff from the 1820’s than on a modern Steinway for instance and there are many more examples. But apart from that it’s allways nice to hear an intelligent person talking about music. Thank you for that. Regards, Theo
One of the things that pleases me the most is how far period practice and conventional practice have come to cooperate and merge. And absolutely, we have to recognise is that a tempo decision is always a decision that FOLLOWS from our view of the significant characteristics of the work. Not the other way round!!!
I would like to research the correlation between tempo and room reverb further.
But why would a composer write down a speed that's just undoable? Of course you don't have to follow it precisely but why would Beethoven ever give a MM that is so far out of range? I just don't get it.
It’s at least 15% out of range IMO. I think that 95% of the time Beethoven gets it right. Here he is off, but the score gives us so much other information about how to proceed that we can, on this rare occasion, overrule him. But again, playing the piece at full tempo would be IMO less bad than playing it at half tempo. In a letter Beethoven expressed the wish to change allegro assai or assai allegro to plain allegro. These pieces were written disturbingly quickly compared with how great writers worked for instance.
Do you mean undoable or not pleasant to listen to ? The majority of Beethoven has been more or less played at indicated tempo ( Kolnisch quartet or Schnabel sonatas for instance) . The only exception is the Hammerklavier if you want to strictly follow the score , but this is a rare exception. It is worth noting that same applies to some modern composers who have proposed impossible metronome marks , it is not specific to that period.
@@philedet9827 I think it is not doable while also doing everything else Beethoven asks. But it is certainly possible to play through the notes at that tempo.
@@VladVexler Do you mean there are conflicting indications ? I would't disagree at all . If I remember Rudolf Kolisch talks about that in his famous book. Interestingly to prove your point, a Toronto quartet (Eybler quartet) has recorded Op 18 under the direction of Eugene Lenher who happened to be a violinist of the Kolisch Quartet. They chose 3 pieces of op 18 because of their controversial metronome markings. They wanted to demonstrate that it is playable but not that nice. Kolisch said that also. There is a quote from him in his book which seems to be addressed directly to Wim's alike : "Opponents of the metronome will even go so far as to make the unbelievably nonsensical assertion that our modern metronome differs considerably from Beethoven, That could be true only if the speed of the earth's rotation had changed in the meantime "
@@philedet9827 I love your referring to Kolisch. Yes, I think the propulsive energy the character of the piece requires is incompatible on a modern piano with a speed of above 120, if not 110. If we just look at the opening bars.
@vladvexler this may be a rather unsophisticated criticism to Winters' theory, but how am I supposed to play on the violin the beethoven concerto in double beat theory. Did they have bows double the length back then? Are we also supposed to play Mozart's 4th concerto at half speed (that would make my college audition significantly easier)? Cheers mate I hope you are having a good holiday.
You touch the biggest issue related to this theory which is how to deal with slow movement as it simply doesn't work at all. Not sure which Beethoven's concerto you are referring to , but for instance if you play the 5th version Zimmerman you set the settings at 0.5 and watch/listen from 2:07 onwards you can see the first violin playing realise that the bow would be impossible , not even mentioning the piano melody which becomes unreal.
Link to 5th by Zimmerman ruclips.net/video/cd9rg9v25bo/видео.html
@@ChristianJoannes I meant the Beethoven Violin concerto op.61 where the soloist has particularly challenging long bow slurred notes which would be impossible at half tempo. In any case I thank you for your recommendation of Zimmerman's performance.
@@tomasaviles3322 Czerny's MM for the Violin Concerto: quarter 126, quarter 60 and dotted quarter 100.
Also Beethovens Piano-Violin sonatas are full of very long bowings, difficult even in single-beat.
@@benjaminachron1493 I'm honestly surprised Winters literally hasn't brought his "theory" beyond the piano. The technique for violin, voice, and basically any wind instrument can alone invalidate the theory overall. Mozart arias at half tempo need an oxygen tank to happen smh...
The funny thing in this debate is, No body cares about musicality, every body brags about speeds and numbers but no body makes a comparsion or even how the frase works
That’s why I tried to not make a debunking video!
I am not a fan of Wim Winters, far from that , but to be abruptly honest, you are as credible as an 'academic philosopher' as he is as a 'musicologist'. In the social media world , anyone who loves good food can pretend to be a 3 star Michelin chef.
Hi Eleonore, I’m currently writing a book about Isaiah Berlin. My postgrad studies were at Oxford and UEA. My PhD research was in political philosophy. I never completed the PhD due to health issues - I got a neurological condition and for several years couldn’t walk or talk or read. Now I am able to work and consult part time and I am grateful to be recognised in a fairly narrow circle in academic philosophy. I agree about your concern about the internet. At the same time, I do also think some content can speak for itself.
@@VladVexler Vlad, please accept my sincere apologies. There are so many fake news and charlatans on youtube, that I was misled. I was wrong.
@@eleonorestarfield7375 Nothing in the world to apologise for - I do hope you are safe at this time!
Here's an interesting paper explaining Beethoven's sometimes weirdly fast metronome markings: "Conductors’ tempo choices shed light over Beethoven’s metronome", Almudena Martin-Castro, Iñaki Ucar, published Dec. 16th 2020. It's published online, easily found by googling the title, and neither long nor heavy.
Watching AS at 2x speed
Wim would not like this comment 😂
.....making sense of EVERY part of the piece , great music is multidimensional and we have to descover ( also as listeners!) its deepest meaning : right! Music is based on mind, on spirit , on heart not on metronome of Malzel only!
Just no way round the idea that a tempo decision has to be a result of taking on board every aspect of the piece!
Thank you for putting out your opinion! Your approach really spoke to me as a performer and composer. I find it, unfortunately, very true that despite the most exciting conceptions of a piece or a performance of a work, the real genius of a performer is to convey what is possible as if it the finest conception of music there can be.
I discovered Wim Winters pretty soon after he started his videos focusing on 'tempo reconstruction' and I found he appealed to me affinity for the novel. Call it irony, but soon after I discovered Wim's content I, tangentially came upon some audio of Satie's 1st Gymnopedie but it had been slowed down to last upwards of 20 minutes! The piece was unrecognizable but I appreciate and find infinitely fascinating the difference of sound the same notation can illicit. From an interpretive standpoint, I still feel as though Winters is merely bringing out side of pieces (or at least their notation) by Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Chopin and others (ofcourse with some extreme adjustments).
As you pointed out, the real debate is in the question of what was originally intended by the composers of a broad time period and Winters is pushing his theory as a definitive conclusion in ways that feel dogmatic. One could say this is a matter of fighting for representation for his ideas but, I get the sense that if the whole world of classical music was to convert to 'Whole Beat' it would become politically incorrect to conceive of music as we do now and I that that very unsettling. I often feel a devaluing of modern interpretation from his content and a presumption of his conceptions of pieces as superior. If I hadn't grown out of that sort of thinking about my and other people's music I would be a much less healthy person.
That being said, I do have to say that having looked at the tempi in Cezerny's studies, I have to admit they are indicated at inhumane speeds- not just to perform but even to hear. Maybe I read the tempi wrong. But Wim Winters' video critiquing Valentina Lisitsa's tempi choices in the finale of Beethoven's 'Moonlight Sonata' he brings up a very interesting example which does make me question the nature of what was written. It does leaves me questioning my existence and maybe I relish that a little.😅😜
Hello Artur, thanks for engaging and sharing your thoughts. I've a few videos planned and one of them is on the so called Moonlight - I'm sure we can discuss that movement then. For me, a tempo decision is always a by product of taking on board everything else going on in the score. I'm rather against isolating tempo and discussing it in abstraction from all the other things the composer asks in the score. Hope you are keeping well.
The whole premise lies on the romantic fantasy that composers perfectly envision the entire composition as is.
Composing is much more about the interaction between the composer and the players and the audience. Isn’t it strange that all these geniuses wrote their perfectly imagined compositions according to the cultural trends of that particular time? Just a coincidence that the Goldberg Variations seem to be written for a virtuoso keyboard player and the Art of Fugue for intellectualism? Or could it be that Bach changed his writing style according to the needs of the player/audience?
I don’t think it is a hierarchy of composer > audience. I think it is more of an interaction, the audience influences the composer and the composer influences the audience. Even if music was played twice as slow back in the day it isn’t now, most people prefer fast angry Beethoven and thus it would be extremely unlikely Beethoven wouldn’t accommodate to that cultural want if he would be here today.
Music is not a painting or sculpture. That is the whole beauty of it. It is unstable, always changing to reflect the current cultural mood.
Lovely to see you again and thanks so much for you thought. There is one important point I don’t quite share with you - and that’s that great composers respond to cultural trends. I think the explanation for what Mozart and Beethoven do is always directly musical. What they are responding to are not cultural trends but the evolutions in musical language that occurred before them. Strongly my view. Hope you are safe at this time and musically fulfilled!
@@VladVexler That is interesting. To me it seems obvious that composers respond to cultural trends but I am aware I haven’t thought about this nearly as much as you have. For instance your views on Glenn Gould were a real “mindblower”. I had never even considered the possibility of thinking about players and how they interpret music like that.
But isn’t it the case that even if a composer tries to progress the musical language they still have to respond to the current cultural trends in some way or another? Bach even though he revered the old composers of his time responded to modern cultural trends like rococo in his music.
Schoenberg innovated tonality but at the time it was the cultural trend to vehemently rebel against the old traditions.
Even though they try to push the boundaries they are contained by the frame of time which dictates some form of cultural character.
Thanks for the videos and taking the time to respond.
@@LesterBrunt so I think that if we talked of an interaction between cultural trends and the work the great classical composers at all, the causal arrow in the first instance would go from the composer to the culture and not the other way round. An idea like ‘rebelling against what comes before’ is too vague IMO to be an explanation of any kind. Moreover what the post Mahler composers did was not a rebellion against the old musical language but its logical elaboration. Just like Beethoven and Schubert exhausted the classical style, so Mahler exhausted tonality. Their successors didn’t reject them, they just inherited languages that had eaten themselves up. You don’t need to think all of this of course, but i should mention I am not saying anything original or anything that’s not thought by a solid number of classical musicians and musicologists. - I know it can seem a bit counter intuitive to think that to explain music we need to look at music, but I think it’s true. At the same time it is certainly not true in blues or in folk music.
@@VladVexler Thanks that is certainly interesting. Do you have any tips for good literature on this? I am thinking of studying musicology next year so it can’t hurt to lay some groundwork.
@@LesterBrunt There is one famous essay worth looking at - it's by Charles Rosen and called 'The Irrelevance of Serious Music". It appears in his book Critical Entertainments. Sadly there isn't a direct essay link as the version that appears in the book is an integration of a couple of essays he wrote for various publications. There are people who criticise Rosen as a critic and as a player, but he has universal assent as an outstanding writer on music.
You are absolutely right that it is useless to 'disprove' WW's 'theory'. In fact, the idea is already more than 50 years old, and has been refuted time and again (most convincingly by Klaus Miehling), but it just keeps popping up. Apart from what you mentioned about the 11% Mozart-effect, there are many more reasons for people to find this idea attractive. For instance, it brings the great classical masterpieces within the reach of amateur players. Of course they wouldn't need the justification of WW to enjoy playing their Beethoven in half tempo, but now they can do so while entertaining the illusion that they are playing the piece 'as the composer intended it'. In addition, it has all the attraction of a conspiracy theory. It is also a safe haven for people who like to take musical notation literally. As some metronome markings seem to be impossible, and composers are infallible gods, there must be a secret code that must be applied. Finally, tempo theories are usually brought forward by organ players, and I think that's not a coincidence, as they are used to slow tempi anyway. Love your channel BTW although I have to admit that I sometimes play your videos at double speed when I'm a bit in a hurry :-)
I look forward to talking more about on the new music channel - currently there are no videos on it. Thank you so so much for your great comment. I was thinking of giving Wim as a cultural phenomenon another pop! My warm wishes to you.
I think the double-beat insurrectionists showed up at the Capitol on January 12.
@@palladin331 but two hours too late
good video. marc andre hamelin plays the opening note of the hammerklavier with crossed hands, sounds much smoother that way. he repeats that any time the motif with the jump shows up.
I look forward to sharing that episode I have been intending to make - on the opening jump. Hopefully we will discuss all the options more fully then!!!
Are we talking about half-fast performances?
Yes!
The number of slowed down musical recordings now available on You Tube Is surprising. I Recall when learning peices by ear one used to play records at 16 RPM which resulted in half tempo and a lowering of pitch by one octave. Yet after a while the brain decodes the pitches and transforms chords and cadenzas back into a musical form almost as though percieving a non existant future sound.
Great video with a very musical approach instead of Winters petty, uninspired approach to the scores of the great classical composers. I like the cynical remarks to his playing and that of his smartest-boy-in-class buddy Alberto. Winters is a cult leader who leaves no room for other opinions. The funny thing is that he masks this by trying to come across as a funny guy who always emphasizes at the beginning of a video how much he respects the opponent at the moment, but then shows the opposite. Watch how he treated the sympathetic pianopat guy who, in his naivety, thought he could engage in a very respectful exchange of arguments. He ended up being blocked twice by "Mr. Authentic".
I cannot agree more with you. Wim Winters would like to make people think he is a nice guy , taking occasionally pictures with his family and dog , but this is very artificial as it doesn’t take long to realise he is a complete douche bag who keeps denying the evidence . He is trapped in his own lies and is loosing progressively audience and respect . In my eyes , it’s done and dusted , we had Talsma in the 80’s , Cobra in the 2000’s and now Winters , they didn’t stand and won’t stand a chance as historical tempo are not based on opinion but on facts and facts prove them wrong . Moreover tempo is just a parameter, amongst others that talented interpreters tend to respect or not. Funny thing is that interpreters that Wim Winters is fund of , such G.Gould are the ones who had the most flexible approach to tempo , sometimes faster than indicated ( Beethoven 3rd movement op 27/2) sometimes slower ( Brahms famous concerto with Berstein) in Gould’s case.
@@mktsound8240 Yes, his fondness of Gould surprised me too, and his own interpretation of Bach's Passacaglia (of course there are no metronome markings but in my opinion it is pretty fast! I guess the double beat tempo taste lasted about half a century during the Viennese School composer period :) )
Thanks so much. I'm planning a new video on Wim with a quite different argument! I'll argue that if an argument like Wim's had a chance of being right, no art tradition could persist across time. Of course it won't be a video of objections to Wim, but a video about how humans access the meaning of a work of art!!
@@VladVexler I will be looking forward to your new episode. The other thing I would like to say about Wim Winters is that I find it amazing how little faith he has in great performing musicians to deal with the many cues in the score, including the ways other than the metronome's to determine a composition's tempo. I do not believe that in just a few centuries men changed radically in feeling, taste, and conception of all aspects of life, as the great writers of the past show in their novels when they describe those of their contemporaries; this also applies, in my opinion, to the performing artist's recreating art. The performance of an 'Adagio con molta espressione' or a 'Allegro molto e vivace', in combination with an estimate that the indications other than tempo indications can be given sufficient space within the structure of the music, will not differ fundamentally of someone living around 1822 from someone living in the present day.
@@theophicen7850 very true . And if you take the pastorale symphony for instance the original manuscript names the various birds intended to be imitated by the instruments . As I am aware nature sounds were similar in that time , or maybe I missed something ;)
Disclaimer: I haven’t watched your whole video yet.
But there was one large point you make which is so in line with my point of view that I felt the need to raise a glass in toast! Namely, that a piece of Western art music* is not an concrete object like a marble statue**: it is not a ‘thing’ with properties which can be discovered through perception and reason. Rather, a piece of music is an act of communication, and hence does not exist outside of interpretation.
[*Possibly some of these qualifiers can be removed and the point would still hold.]
[**It could be debated whether a marble statue has the epistemological status I’ve given it here, but I needed a contrasting example.]
The ‘thing’ Wim focuses on (as do many musicians!) is the analogue of what in speech we could call an ‘utterance’ : a collection of speech sounds and inflections, if you like. Wim also wishes to take some of the context of the utterance into account: hypothetical social and musical contextual meaning, and so forth. So, in musical terms, we are talking about the score (a finite list of symbols), combined with a theory of performance practice and affective associations.
That’s a fine thing to focus on; it just ain’t music. At best it’s a limited form of music history or musicology. An analogy would be: we’re sitting at a coffee shop. You say something; I’ve recorded it on my phone. I leave without saying a word, go home, transcribe what you’ve said, and write a paper detailing all the concepts touched upon in what you’ve said. What does this add up to? Certainly not a conversation. You tried to communicate; I engaged in ‘utterance research’ . Yes, your action inspired my action; there’s definitely a connection between our actions!
But it’s not a conversation, and crucially, even if I correctly transcribed your speech to the phoneme, and correctly identified the syntactic structure of your sentence, and gave all the meanings of the words you uttered, complete with their sociolinguistic and discourse implications - you would not feel heard. You would feel, correctly, that you were being ignored by someone with his head stuffed so far up, he can only see his own BS.
Conversely, some of the best conversations involve misunderstandings (well, also some of the worst!), tangents, free association - within the bounds of good taste. By which I mean that you might really a connection with someone in a conversation, even if some of what you’ve said is ignored, even if some of what you’ve said is taken in a very different direction from what you might have imagined.
This is why I feel that Glenn Gould is the ultimate musician (which is far from saying I enjoy his performances). No other musician can give the sense that he is engaged in deep conversation with the the composer. You’ve probably seen me write this elsewhere, but when he plays, I cannot help but imagine the composer listening, saying at times, “Ah! I hadn’t thought of that.”, and at others, “Why the hell would you do that?!” . But his ability to evoke that conversation in every performance is, for me, the greatest expression of music-making.
But I ramble. Enough for now. Very interested to watch your whole video!
Thanks so much for this comment Jeremy. I must disappoint you because I do think the piece already exists on the page. That's what I mean by multiple realisability - that it substantially exists on the page, with it's personality already on the page, but then there are multiple ways of realising it in sound. And of course the final realisation will go through the performer and will express the performer's relationship with the piece and their style. And that will mean that we are getting access to the content of the minds of both the composer and the performer. That's why we can instantly recognise who is playing, just from hearing a few bars. But the performer remains primarily a mediator, not a co creator.
Now the effect of Wim's theory - though that's not his conscious position - is to smash that gap completely. That's why when someone objects to him that he psychologically falsifies the piece, he says: what's your evidence?
Here is something else that's important. When a piece of music lives in my head and in my body, I am not hearing any particular performance of it. Moreover, I am not hearing my own idea of a possible performance. What I am experiencing is closer to the piece itself - it's an experience of the piece that sits PRIOR to any realisation of it in sound.
I look forward to an in depth conversation about Glen Gould - I think we may need another video on that. I regard his musical life as a failure, but a tragic one - I think nobody else failed like Gould with that much talent. I think he was one of the most talented musicians of the century.
That's a neat way of describing what Gould does.
@@VladVexler I know we disagree on this point! I'm all right with that; I think there's still plenty to agree on, and to debate.
Obviously I agree that concepts like 'creator' , 'mediator' , 'piece' , 'realization' , and so forth, are useful abstractions. It just depends on the level of the conversation. If I am simply referencing such-and-such piece by so-and-so composer, obviously I will engage in these abstractions, just like I talk about a chair as a thing even though we can also view it by its atomic structure.
But in conversations such as these where the very nature of music is coming into question, I don't find these abstractions to help. I prefer to zoom out and take a bird's-eye view: Beethoven did something, and now I am doing something. Specifically, Beethoven communicated: he sent out signals in an effort to emotionally manipulate other people. We receive his communications and interpret them, and respond. There is only "music-making" , to my way of understanding, if there is this sort of conversation.
What you refer to as a piece's 'personality' is subsumed for me in the model of conversation, as simply the character of the speaker and the utterance. But your language of 'realization' to me falls into an unnecessary paternalistic view of things, which doesn't capture the spectrum of interpretation on which we can have, say, Kleiber's Beethoven 5, Karajan's, and Liszt's piano transcription, but also 'A Fifth of Beethoven', and the Judge Judy theme; or even better, Brendel's Hammerklavier, Sanno's Hammerklavier, and Brahms's first piano sonata. Yes, perhaps some of these are more like 'realizations of X' and others are 'compositions inspired by X' , and certainly that is a useful *terminological* distinction, but I don't see the use of considering them to be fundamentally different. They are all simply responses in a conversation.
When I listen to conversations between you and others on RUclips, what does it matter that your videos come first? I find your video interesting, as well as the comments of your audience. Similarly, I love what composers wrote, and I also find it interesting to listen to responses in sound to those compositions (ie performances).
What you refer to as the general boundaries of an interpretation also makes more sense as a question of communication, rather than what is 'allowable' . In communication, generally speaking, we obviously have concepts that refer to more- and less-abstract concepts. In language especially we have completely referential phrases like 'that sweater you bought me last Christmas' , which communicates low-level phenomena experienced through the senses. On the other hand we have more abstract conceptual relationships. Similarly, since music is organized sound, there are obviously going to be aspects of musical expression that correspond to more low-level and high-level sonic experiences. That's why it is not surprising that in Western music, pitches are considered 'unalterable' in interpretation, whereas other musical elements like dynamics and rhythm can be treated more flexibly. It is no different from the observation that in the sentence, "I don't know what to think about your latest video.", it's clear *what* I'm talking about ('your latest video' has some clear reference in terms of low-level human experience), but much less clear what feelings I'm claiming to have had.
What "a piece of music" consists of is maybe the least important question to me, though I have already agreed with you on one of Patrick's videos that it is most felicitious to have 'piece' refer to the score - by which I mean not literally 'the page' , but some abstract syntactic structure of lines and dots that has various isomorphic physical realizations on the page. Anyway this seems like another terminology issue only.
I think my most fundamental disagreement with you is our different takes on the status of an "inner" interpretation of a composer's communication. In my way of understanding, I simply go back to the analogy of a conversation, and I see a more clear understanding. You speak something to me; I sit quietly and ponder it. Surely this is not the same as a response in words, but it doesn't make any sense to refer to my quiet pondering as being "closer" to your "true meaning" than my verbal responses. They're both just different responses to your actions; and, of course, the former usually leads to the latter.
As for Gould (gosh this has gotten long; sorry, I don't express myself well through RUclips comment threads), I have seen your other videos and am eager to see a follow-up! Again, I don't "like" his interpretations, by and large. I feel largely unmoved by the musical content. But I think he realizes to an unbelievable degree my understanding of music-making as communication between the composer and performer.
For crying out loud, I must stop myself now. Have a nice day!
@@plusjeremy Apologies to interfere in this very interesting discussion. There is one point I disagree with which is your classification of unalterable parameters of a composer's score , i.e. pitches, dynamics and rhythm. IMHO , the main reason why these various parameters are not 'treated' with the same rigorous method, is primarily due to the imperfection of the notation system . Obviously, keys and notes are crystal clear, basic rhythm also , however indications related to dynamics, time distortion such as rubato or accents are far from perfection. Fortunately, it gives some free space to the interpreter so one can add his own vision , thinking he is loyal to the score. Nevertheless, I would imagine that if the notation system was such that every parameter could be quantified with a value, including the attack of the notes, such as a midi recording , there would be one and only way to reproduce what the author had in mind, assuming the composer was psycho rigid about the way to play his piece. I don't think Beethoven was rigid , as many testimonies relate that he would never play a given piece twice at the same tempo and he used the sustain pedal much more than indicated, but some other composers, for instance Ravel, were known to be extremely strict and inflexible about the execution of their work not allowing any change , even fingering.
@@periodinstruments8651 We'll have to agree to disagree on this one! Your position seems to be that the precision of various elements of music is due to the notation. I think that there are inherent differences in "precision" (which depend on the musical language and culture), and accordingly the precision of the symbols reflects this.
Also, when I used the word 'unalterable' I think I put it in quotes, because I don't believe in such "rules" of interpretation. I was simply pointing out that it should not be a surprise that various aspects of sound are more definite than others, just as 'sweater' is more definite than 'love' . The former is more like a pitch; the latter is more like a tempo or mood indication.
I don't think, however, that this means pitch notation is necessarily "perfectly" precise. Composers often hear sounds in their heads which collections of pitches can only imperfectly capture.
I also don't necessarily agree that composers use "imprecise" notation to "leave room for interpreters' imagination" . Fundamentally, I feel that composers express emotion through organized sound, communicated through notation. Once a composer fixes every aspect of the sound, using MIDI or whatever, it is no longer a composition - it is a performance.
I have commented elsewhere that communication is not possible without interpretation, and hence misinterpretation. To be understood does not mean to faithfully copy some structure of brain synapses into someone else's brain perfectly; that sounds more like the transmission of a virus. To be understood means that what you say has to be interpreted and understood by another person according to their way of understanding. Translation is inherently a part of communication, whether we are talking about spoken language or music.
@19:33 Why do you choose to sacrifice the tempo though? Why not something else? Is tempo less important? I think that's Wim's point. You could obey all directions by second guessing the interpretation of the metronome marks.
You also say that you acknowledge that not everything he (Beethoven) asks can go together. Doesn't that alone legitimize at least second-guessing of our current interpretations?
WRONG. I'm not sacrificing the tempo the composer intended. I'm sacrificing ONE indication of the intended tempo, which is the tempo indication itself.
Tempo is not an element which is in conflict with other elements of your interpretation. Tempo IS central to your interpretation. You don''t weigh tempo against other things you need to do. You unify it with them.
How often I do this depends on the composer. With Beethoven, who is reliable, my preference is always to be slow to overrule him.
Just find some tempomarkings for Dances from that time and the problem should be solved for mr Winters. Dances have their default tempo. Menuett Polonaise Gavotte Mazurka Gigue… whatever, if they are played in a wrong tempo, dancers will kill you or break their feet.
This is true. In fact, tempo of dances contradict even more Wim Winters than piano method books from that period who explicitly prove him wrong. He very often talked about the very fast tempo for Waltzes in his pleading for double beat, ignoring the fact that what the tempo he is thinking of for a Waltz , relates to the dance as we know it nowadays and not as it was back then, as the Waltz was transformed when it got popular in England . It became a much slower dance compared to the original Viennese Waltz of the early 1800 , which according to the dance documents of this period, was a very fast dance.
I didn't even get into direct objections to Wim in this video - I felt that wasn't necessary. I'll be making a very different reflection on Wim soon!
I don’t understand why your video has 38 dislikes . The only reason I can see is the sectarianism of Wim’s few followers who happened to be also religious extremists for the most part . The simple fact to be against Wim Winters is a good enough reason for them to dislike you at best and hate you at worst . Look at Bernard Ruchti, the simple fact that he is softer than Wim Winters , while still being wrong , is enough to be systematically ignored by Wim’s fan even if he plays at half speed. He is by far the best pianist . Wim is not a pianist, Weller is a joke and Alberto Sana is a young disillusioned and weak character completely under the influence of Wim who manipulates him like a puppet.
Hello there! You are much tougher judger than me, which takes something! Personally, I still wish Wim's channel well. I also think his following reveals a truth about all of us - that we can't see beyond the limited version of a thing we have in front of us, and often think that that thing in front of us is as good as it gets. True of food, wine, sex, art, and musical performance.
So I am a bit split. On the one hand Wim's followers are drawn to music, to the lovely sounds of period instruments, and Wim gives them that beautifully. On the other hand, they are really missing out because the music is unrecognisable under his concept.
@@VladVexler You are definitely softer than me .
@@mktsound8240 For me it's about not needing to bridge the world as it is with the world as it should be. Do I want people with batshit crazy ideas to go away or change their mind? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
@@VladVexler I don’t disagree with you , but we have to be self conscious. There is fine line between crazy ideas and conspiracy that one shouldn’t cross. Playing at half speed is a crazy idea that can in some cases produce interesting renditions but pretending it is historical and based on valid facts is a fallacy to be classified as a conspiracy.
@@mktsound8240 I don’t think - am I wrong? - that Wim is claiming that musicologists agree with him but are conspiring to suppress his perspective? I think he is claiming that he figured it out and they haven’t. Interestingly, I don’t believe Wim fully believes himself.
I think there’s potential value in questioning existing recording traditions. With pieces such as the Dvorak Cello Concerto, there are “traditions” which many follow which aren’t present in the score. Wim Winters has come across a particular way to perform standard repertoire pieces differently, which is valuable if we’re going to insist on performing the same 100-200 pieces ad nauseum for the rest of eternity. Because why play things exactly the same way forever and ever?
That said, I watched some of the performance videos and my response is “nope.” Haven’t watched any of them all the way through. I can’t bring myself to do it.
Well, in certain cases it can be interesting, but I don’t know that I’d advocate for playing Beethoven’s 5th at a whole beat tempo by any means. The famous opening doesn’t sound “Allegro con brio” at all. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
Thank for for your thought! I will be making a second video on Wim soon, to refresh and clarify the ideas in this one. What this channel is committed to is the principle that the character of the piece informs the tempo. That’s a thought without which western art music couldn’t exist. And it’s a thought that is unavailable to Wim.
Wait a minute . No one has an issue with playing at a different tempo ( to a point, as halving the metronome mm by half for slow movements leads to musical nonsense) but everyone has an issue with people manipulating historical facts or documents and making a theory which had been debunked on any possible angle .
Thank you 🙏 for addressing this. I commented on a Mozart symphony performance that it was “excruciating” and people came at me like a pack of sycophantic wolves, eventually suggesting that I was an idiot that should be crucified!
Read the comments under the Jupiter symphony performance. These people are nuts!
Alan I am so sorry that happened to you. Wim has tunnel vision, which is why he struggles with criticism and why he’s come up with an idea that substitutes macro perspective for a micro detail. This video has aged a bit now, so I will be refreshing it with a fresher one soon! Wish you well!
@@VladVexler Can't wait!
@@shobarsch great!
Many thoughts here, some I agree with, some not. Wim's ideas on tempo - while I disagree with them - can be criticized from different angles. A solid theory should be solid when examined from all viewpoints including the emotional one. Emotional research does not require a library card. On the other hand it is insufficient if it is the only research done. Beethoven said (wrote?) that descriptive tempos were nonsense, and after the metronome came along, he put metronome markings on his symphonies. I agree with you in that a correct interpretation can be approximately the sum of a vast universe of diverse interpretations (not your exact words but my summation of them). However, we cannot properly drive today's automobiles by learning how to ride a horse. I like to practice the "Mondshein" sonata (1) in the slower incorrect tempo but perform it much faster. I'm looking forward to viewing more of your vids. Very thought-provoking. ruclips.net/video/5ktBxktH04A/видео.html
Thanks so much. Just enjoyed your video and subscribed. Of course I don’t believe in debunking Wim, but if there is one fundamental problem he has, it is that he denies that tempo choice is an aesthetic decision. (Doesn’t need to be said to you of course - but for the record aesthetic doesn’t mean arbitrary or devoid of objectivity). Hope you are safe at this time. Much much content on western art music coming up soon on this channel - I look forward to more conversation.
@@VladVexler Well, yes, I would say that tempo choice is an aesthetic decision. So if a composer specifies it (by metronome number) and I play it at his tempo, I am making a choice, because I could have chosen to not obey his specification - under the banner of artistic freedom. I would have to have a sound reason though. Look at Satie's gymnopedies - how many pianists actually play them his specified tempos. So even if we had metronome markings by Ludwig, I suspect that many would disregard them. Not to equate myself, but I sometimes disregard the metronome markings on my own music.
@@rubinsteinway Yes and in these conversations I distinguish the intentions of the composer from the composer's expressed wishes. The former is a deeper notion than the latter.
@@VladVexler A difficult and complex issue. Yes, the intentions may be deeper than the expressed wishes, but we don't know what the former are with total certainty. We do know what the composer has written. Often there are contradictions - seemingly.
@@rubinsteinway Indeed. As Alfred Brendel likes to say, Beethoven's markings match the character of a piece 95% of the time! And we are not so lucky with quite a few other composers!
This is a video of interpretation culture, which is much younger than the music of I.e. Beethoven itself. Please interpret and discover whatever want, but especially by reading those correspondences and instructions of the past, it becomes clear that a tempo is indeed just the speed of a pulse, plus a little beat of character and mood, but still a metronomic speed at its base, that can be put to work. I can’t see how you would come to a different conclusion, without simply referring to the performance and recording practice of the last ~100 years. Thoughts?
*on interpretation culture
@@123Joack Hi and thanks for your comment! I am not quite sure what you mean by interpretation culture. And as a result not sure if you agree or disagree with the video!
I am not saying anything about tempo in the video, except (v roughly) that it should go as quickly or slowly as the composer intended.
There will be a future video on tempo, where I will argue that there are 3 kinds of tempo, and they are humanly universal beyond wester art music. Metronomic. Improvisatory. And psychological.
@@VladVexler I am saying that Beethoven especially wanted you to play exactly in his metronomic speeds, that is a fact. I only agree with you that a modern performer should take all the 100 things you talk about into account, since reproducing Beethoven’s intention is no longer relevant, but rather creating a contemporary perspective (interpretation). That makes sense to me.
@@123Joack I agree that we need to take B very seriously when he gives a tempo indication. And that in general 95-99% fo the time we shouldn't overrule what he has put into the score. But sometimes he makes a mistake, as I believe he did with the 138 in 106.
I actually think Beethoven's intention is the only thing that's relevant. To me, all interpretive decisions follow on from that. But I define intention broadly, as I believe we must do. If we reduce INTENTION to an explicit and conscious command we would be unable to explain why you crossed the road today, or had an almond croissant yesterday!
Why do you think he made a mistake? There are much faster Speeds than his Hammerklavier sonata. If you think he made mistakes giving metronome speeds, after composing a piece for months years or decades, that opens the door to neglecting many more instructions he gave. Also the Hammerklavier is by far not the fastest, or most implausible number given by him or his contemporaries.
authentic insanity?
A musical composition, like a written theatrical play, is a delimination of a space 1 dimension higher (at least) of any possible performance of the piece. The chosen path through this n-space is necessarily n-1 in dimension - choices made, landmarks missed - a path through the map. The art of the composer / playwight is in the fecundity of the created map. The craft of the performer is in the choice of route through the map. Incidentally, the issue of double/half tempo's can be resolved by paying attention to the dance music. There's no fun to be had gavotting at half speed.
I miss the days we could worry about metronomes and not about Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
The most universal human value:
The ability to plan ahead. I don’t mean consciously, people act impulsive sometimes, I mean the fact that you have already thought about your general idea for the day, and if you haven’t, you’ve planned to get out of bed, get dressed, walk to the living room or kitchen. We do it to an extent that no other animal does. Some can do it a little bit, but we are alone in most of our planning abilities.
So I think we would say that planning ahead is a universal feature of human beings. It's perhaps less obvious that it is a value - for that we would need to talk about 'planning ahead' well, or the role of 'planning ahead 'in a life that goes well.
@Stereophonix with you on the climate crisis and yes universal human capacities are not in of themselves values.
The issue here is that the proposition from Wim Winters in a way ( like Talsma in the 80’s) is somehow musically agnostic as he pretends that historical documents support it . Moreover , musical sense as such is a subjective field , there is no wrong or right in this domain , only personal taste . It may well be that out of 100 persons , 99 dislike Wim Winters sluggish music ( count me in , I hate it) and only one likes it , but maybe that one person may right historically, so the only way to prove Wim Winters is wrong is to refute the theory and after that it’s a domino effect, all the rest fall to pieces. To use another illustration as soon as you provide a counter proof with an example of one artist playing a difficult piece at tempo , Wim and his few fans always answer ´yes it plays at tempo , but it sounds awful’ so you cannot win if you are using a subjective view and specially not in arts . Don’t get me wrong I am a massive opponent of this silly theory that could refuted in many ways .
Very well said, and this is why music is a expression of art form and not science.
Thanks so much for watching!
Thank you for this. I don't know if I would call Winter's theory "insanity", but I would certainly call it "un-musical". The vast majority of instrumental music written before the 20th century was attempting - to some degree - to imitate the human voice's ability to "carry a tune". You can't carry a tune at half-tempo. It ceases to have phrases and just becomes a series of meaningless notes one after the other - and most ESPECIALLY on the period keyboard instruments that Winter so favours.
I think I agree with all of that. Thank you so much for sharing your perspective. There will be a new video on Wim in 2022. With new remarks!
Exactly. It should be musical and artistical in the first place. You can criticize all the fetish for fastness at all costs... but practicing so slow that distort any musical idea to the point one cannot understand it is already not advisable... imagine a performance that you cannot understand the musical ideas... That's why I never bought it.
Absolutely. All the scores would have to be transcript in order to sound good in double beat. But 19th scores have been written with standard metronome reading in mind. A lento tempo ( MM=50) means that each quarter note last 2.4s seconds in double beat, in common time. As you say it is impossible to have a musical phrase with such a lengthy note duration, unless you rewrite your score with 8 eights. Obviously you want find these movements in authentic sound channel , has he systematically chose fast movements. It is a case where the listening confirm the maths. It simply doesn't work musically. You can trick people by playing prestissimo slower, but not grave or lento.
Thank you Vlex for your insightful discussion. However, to my mind, Wim Winters’s playing did reveal something intrinsic to the classical style.
When he talked of the beginning of his so-called tempo research, he mentioned 2 pieces that he studied at the same time, by Bach and Mozart respectively. They are similar in character, but required to play in very different tempo by today’s academia. Then he began to question the tempo of the Mozart piece.
Many of his playing sounds like a ridiculous mixture. While many parts absolutely lose the sense of momentum and excitement, some parts of the piece, if heard separately, sound not only appropriate, but also refreshing and insightful. Take his Beethoven op.10 no.3 as an example. His overall tempo can hardly be called ‘presto’, but the b minor part in the exposition sounds perfect as a woodwind duet by bassoon and oboe/flute. I thought, if it’s a Bach piece and he played it this way, nobody would accuse him of being too slow. However, is it valid to play a Beethoven sonata in this manner? Why are 2 pieces of music even sharing the similar character instructed by composers to be played in drastically different tempi?
This question can be a debunk of Wim’s ‘absolute’ conception of tempo, but it also reveals the difference between baroque and classical styles, especially something essential to classical style. That’s a kind of music interacting with its context, by juxtaposition and transition. To put it radically, it’s not only Wim that manipulates some parts of Beethoven and Mozart to accommodate them to a ‘single’ tempo, but also Mozart and Beethoven that manipulate(or designate) certain musical idioms passed onto them to a certain tempo or momentum by juxtaposition and transition in their compositions.
It doesn't make sense to speak of validity with respect to behavior. He did it, didn't he? Do you mean is it 'valid' to call what he did an interpretation? Well, he feels it is. Are you trying to set up an absolute metric by which he is wrong and you are right? Well, Wim will just disagree with this metric. So there is no point in debating along these lines, I feel.
What we can talk about is, firstly, whether we enjoy listening to Wim's performances. Here, without question, there are many people who do - I myself enjoy many of his performances. Secondly, we can ask as lovers of the composer, whether we feel Wim's interpretations fully engage in conversation with what Beethoven has put forth. That's where I feel Wim fails most; what Vlad describes as "doing violence" to certain layers of the music.
Consider that second group in B minor from Op. 10, No. 3. The melody, abstracted from the rest of the music, could certainly be played at a wide range of tempi and with a wide variety of character. It could be slow and plaintive, with heaviness to each eighth note. It could be andante, flowing, melancholy, with four light pulses to the bar. (The accompaniment to this section could be played like the guitar in "Voi che sapete" from Figaro.) It could be restless and agitated, with accents to each half note. Or impassioned, with one beat to the bar. This is why Wim's playing can sound lovely at any given moment. He is quite good at playing all these characters and shadings, and if you are solely focused on one dimension of the music, he can satisfy. And in this sense, Wim is quite impressive with his flexibility and imagination.
But for me, this approach fails as soon as you zoom out even the slightest bit. The opening of the movement is unquestionably full of energy and excitement. The first phrase ending at the fermata is clearly in one breath (I always hear the words, "you should get a medal/or be even made a knight", from My Fair Lady) - this already restricts the range of tempi (even if you don't consider the cut-time and presto indications). Further, when you consider that this first phrase has to be harmonically and texturally balanced by the next six bars, the range of tempi is restricted even further - otherwise we would not hear the two as a pair. Finally, climax of the opening, where the two hands alternate the same notes in octaves, requires that there can be no weight on the second eighth note of each pair - Beethoven has clearly only added texture and excitement to the opening theme. Similar comments could be made about the alternation in octaves in bars 56-65: this music doesn't make sense unless there is a strong rhythmic connection between each pair of quarter notes, so there cannot be four pulses to the bar. (The sforzandi in bars 31 and 35 suggest this as well.) Etc ad nauseum.
In short, most of the musical material of the movement suggests a tempo which is quite brisk; certainly with no more than two big beats to the bar. (And I haven't even begun to touch on the rest of the movement!) This agrees perfectly with Beethoven's indication of a cut-time Presto. This, then, fixes the sort of interpretation of the B minor section that can make a fitting contrast to the opening. It has to be a sentiment / mood / tempo that does justice to the basic pulse established in the opening. No doubt the pulse will broaden a bit, because there is plenty of excitement in the left hand, but it is critical to the form that the two sections sound like different sides of the same coin.
For what it's worth, I do feel many performances of this piece are so fast as to be incoherent, but that's not to say I prefer Wim's approach. As long as there is a touch of exhiliration, I am not offended.
Thanks so much for your comment. I'll make a sideways remark rather than a direct reply. I really attend to each piece on its own terms. I treat each piece as a world onto itself - and as an object that exists independently of the composer. So my views on what's right or wrong are always terribly specific to a piece. Ideas like 'this is how you play late Beethoven' are rather alien to me. Warm wishes.
@@VladVexler is there not any middle ground? Of course I can’t get away from my “conversation” model, but thinking of speech, when my wife says something to me, I do try to hear it with fresh ears, with as few expectations as I can - but I don’t forget completely that I know the person who’s speaking. Do you really shut out any sense of the composer as a whole, or even phases of a composer’s life, like, “Beethoven around the time he composed Op 101 and 102”?
@@plusjeremy no!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Of course I don’t shut it out - my main complaint about piano playing in the major halls is that so often the performer knows the composer’s piano writing well, but not their ensemble and orchestral work. And I think that knowledge is so important to understanding what the composer wants. I take this to be compatible with what I say above!
Personally, I would much rather listen to someone play op. 106 at or near 138 (1st mvt) without executing perfectly every note, articulation and phrase mark than someone plodding through at half tempo and destroying the spirit/intention of this masterpiece. BTW, I'm sure everyone knows this sonata was deemed "unplayable" by Beethoven's peers.
I could only justify 138 as an experiment, probably on a period instrument. But if I had to choose between Wim tempo and 138 I would go 138 !
I cannot agree more with what you say . Perfection is not a substitute for feeling . Best example imho is Samson Francois version of the difficult concerto for left hand which is considered by many as the best rendition ever . There are a few bump notes , so nowadays he would lose in competitions but no one has ever been able to convey as much feeling as he did . . Op 106 is about taking risk as explained eloquently by Schiff , so go for it , give 110 % of what are you capable of and the public will not care if you miss the first jump, you will still be a hero !
Hammerklavier is playable at Beethoven's tempo but some intervalles are too strechted for an average hand on modern klavier and some polyphonies are supposing leaving the pitch before the full duration. The weird thing is it's as extreme as some contemporary pieces like Xenakis's. So probably Von Bulow tempo was right because if one's succed to play at original tempo is would seem to sound weird or anachronical I think. (Schnabel's pretty near) Yves Nat is amazing too.
Yes Schnabel must be the fastest of the major pianists. I have an episode coming up on the opening jump of open 106! Whether we should (1) distribute hands, (2) play with one hand, (3) cross hands or (4) play with one hand once and then distribute!
@@VladVexler to be continued so ☺
@@VladVexler one hand jump is mandatory ( so to speak) . Andreas Schiff talks about it in his lectures and considers it as a wish if taking risk’ inherent to the spirit of the piece . It is actually not the scariest jumps in the repertoire . I guess the main technical challenge with jumps is to have enough lateral speed to position the hand with sufficient margin to secure the next chord . Here the biggest help for the pianist is the B flat key which helps securing the chord . If you take ravel concerto for left hand the opening jump is as problematic if no more , there is less lateral distance but no black key to secure the landing and it must be played at lightning speed . It is the biggest fear of any live performer who ever played that piece in public , however no none disputes that it must be played as intended and at the tempo required . It reminds me scores rewritten by some pianists made to redistribute the hands in Goldberg variations. I guess the main challenge is not whether or not you can achieve the same musical result using 2 hands or redistributing the notes , but whether or not you are capable to engage in the piece in a manner which is compatible with what the composer wanted . It’s a long debate but one thing I’m sure of is that the satisfaction you get when you overcome a technical challenge of that nature gives you a ticket to raw pleasure .looking fwd to your video on the subject
@@ChristianJoannes Ha ha yes I look forward to your critique, because I think Schiff is wrong! I will also review in that video the 4 options different pianists have historically deployed in the opening two jumps of opus 106. (Of course I don't mean it is unplayable with one hand; it is easily playable as you rightly say). To be continued!!
@@VladVexler this is a fascinating topic . Taking the example mentioned above , would you consider legitimate to play the Ravel concerto with 2 hands instead of LH only ? It makes life simpler and it well played, can sound the same . Alfred Cortot edited it so it could be played with 2 hands and Ravel was so upset that he wrote to most European conductors to ask them not to play with him! How can we be sure that Beethoven wouldn’t have reacted similarly given he was known to be very strict about adherence to his intentions ? We know that both Liszt and Von Bulow recommended it to be played with 2 hands, but Beethoven could have been equally upset about it .
why only twice slower? why not thrice slower ?!? ;-)
I disagree.
i) Beethoven was a tempo and piano technique nerd. There is almost no room for the interpreter to fool around with piano technique and tempo with Beethoven. Of course it is interesting to do it nonetheless and obviously other pieces/composers even require it, but, here it's super cheap to deflect with philosophical pedantry and sophistication.
ii) It's playable. See ruclips.net/video/XFzP0h3p1-I/видео.html .
iii) Late Beethoven was almost completely deaf; and he most likely compose using its inner ear and mental practice. It is thus very possible that he chose a tempo that corresponds to the ideal piece, neglecting practical implications. Czerny did left testimony that it was the case. That does not mean that this fast tempo should be seen as wrong.
iv) There is no shame in playing it slower, because what Beethoven intent was too hard. The blunt truth is that Wim is right when he says that historical tempos should be an ideal. If you fasten the tempo of the best recordings up to 130+ bpm, subjects and counterpoints sounds actually really, really good. But this means one has to admit "OK I can't play it so fast, so I will play it according to my technique because, you know, I can't".
(1) I think 95% of the time it's not OK to overrule Beethoven.
(2) I think all Webster's performance shows is that it can be played near 138, but no one doubts that. It is even playable above 140. But if I were doing a masterclass, I would stop any pianist who tried to play it above 120 on a modern piano. I briefly explain why in this video and may do a longer episode just on 106 in the near future.
(3) I think Beethoven simply made a mistake with 138. I think that's obvious and were he to come to the piece, he would probably correct it.
(4) I think a performance on a period instrument could get closer to 138 with less damage to the piece. On a modern piano, as Alfred Brendel says, not even the devil himself could play it in a way Beethoven asks at the tempo he asks.
@@VladVexler Fair enough, I probably misinterpreted what you explained because of your emphasis on the duality between composer and performer.
@@mathyys thank you for your perspective!
@@VladVexler You're welcome. I saw few other videos of yours on other subjects (Neolib, Putin) and they're are really really good, the points that are not so mainstream but "obvious" appear very clearly which is immo the goal of philosophy.
This one on double beat was harder to follow, it would have required a 1 min intro summary hook; YT /social media requires a ridiculous amount of unmannered emphasis on the logical architecture of the discourse and main points. but I think you know this.
Why did Beethoven only write "Allegro" and not "Prestissimo"? Perhaps they meant something different in those days.
Beethoven originally put ‘Allegro assai’ or ‘assai Allegro’ and then replaced it with just ‘Allegro’. Charles Rosen points out that 138 would have been normal for an Allegro in the 1780s. Now we are talking 40 years later, and much denser material than a typical Mozart Allegro. There are two more considerations - a faster tempo works better on a period instrument. And, Beethoven would not have thought that a metronome marking was valid for the entirety of a work. However, taking all that into account, the 138 indication remains an error of judgement on Beethoven’s part and requires a 15-20% reduction at least. One thing that remains clear is that the work cannot be majestic or magisterial. Hence Wim’s tempo is an evasion of the character of the work.
@@VladVexler Charles Rosen wrote and excellent book on the Classical Style, but I don't know where he got the information that 138 (1/4 note?) would have been normal for an Allegro in the 1780s. Again you say that a faster tempo works better on a period instrument, but, except for runs, that is apparently not so. Yes, I agree that Beethoven would not have considered the same MM valid for an entire movement. However, the variation around the given MM would surely not be extreme and there would have to be a musical reason for this variation. The material of the Hammerklavier does follow the Czerny description of a majestic and magisterial character allegro, especially the opening of the first movement. Its complexity, musical density and counterpoint preclude the fast tempo at which it is normally played. Wim and Alberto are spot on.
@@petertyrrell3391 I can only agree to disagree! Glad you are getting value from Wim’s content. I wonder - do you enjoy all pieces at Wim’s tempo? You do you find that some work for you and others don’t?
@@VladVexler I enjoy most of Wim's tempi - at these speeds you can give a variety of articulation and more easily respect the composer's markings. I am not sure whether WB is really valid for Tchaikovsky, Brahms or Grieg, though.
@@petertyrrell3391 interesting thank you for sharing
Authentic insanity.
Well that almost makes it too Romantic with a capital R!
A composer writes for instruments that don't yet exist? There is not much evidence for this.
The cantabile - whether the singing of the human voice or of string instruments - that Mozart’s and Beethoven’s keyboard music requires was not yet possible in their time...
@@VladVexler Well, with keyboard instruments other than the organ, you just have to use your imagination, or if you are a composer, not write long notes, or fill them out with ornaments.
Peter Tyrell Some of the flute music of the 18th century, notably by JS Bach, works only on a much later flute.
Some harpsichordists and fortepianists can draw a very beautiful cantabile from their instruments; and the old stringed instruments and woodwinds can likewise be played cantabile. Stylistic considerations often demand a more articulated style of performance than later became the norm; but that reflects musical sensibility, rather than any inherent limitations of the older instruments.
Excellent video. A pleasure to watch and listen to . 🙌 . The only argument I disagree with somehow is when you say there is no point debunking this theory . I consider the approach to let conspiracy type of theories die by themselves was valid in the 80-90’s prior to the effect that social media networks had when it comes to influencing people’s mind. Prior to that period , libraries and scholarship articles were the principal vectors for knowledge, therefore a theory that wasn’t supported by academics had a limited lifetime . Nowadays , it’s different. The RUclips and Facebook are amongst the main instruments to propagate ideas and they only care about advertising not about ethics . The fact is that if you search for ‘Beethoven tempo’ on RUclips you will likely be presented with a link to Authentic Sound which is insane . Bottom line , one or two videos that refute this craziness is far from being enough. Not to convince double beaters because it is a sect , but to present articles on the subject to new audience interested with the subject.
Look, I am very worried that our public squares are regulated by large companies which have no more legitimacy for the task than my local kebab shop. I'm very concerned about that - and some of the past and hopefully future videos on this channel will be on this.
Part of the reason I never engaged with a direct rebuttal of Wim is that @pianopat has done a good job of this on RUclips. And a few others chipped in too. And perhaps another reason is just a matter of sensibility - I don't regard Wim's views as dangerous. Very few, if any, musicians or listeners with a deep relationship to music will buy into his theory. But I think that's a matter of sensibility, a matter of how far you are interested in bridging the world as it is with the world as it might be! Thanks so much for your kind comment. I have a lot of classical music planned. This channel is 30%+ about the aesthetics of musical performance! (Something the RUclips algorithm does not like!)
How very German in thought, Herr Winters - langsamer ist ernster. I'm sure Herr Wagner would demure as he said first the performer must find the right tempo as the composer intended. But what would he know. It seems all composers toss off compositions without realizing what they wrote, even if The Ring took 26 years. In fact, the poor composer has to try and put on paper with dots and lines what he hears in his head. That's where the performer enters in- to try and recreate, not reinvent, what the composer imagined. And the metronome? Is that just chopped liver? (Beethoven's not withstanding) In fact, this shows how far we have come from the age that created these works and instead we get the Jacques Derrida of music who will teach us how to deconstruct the work of genius'. Maestro Italo Marchini
I think there are a combination of things at play. First, most composers didn't give metronome markings and many of them were added to the scores in later editions by other people. Second, it's certainly possible that there was confusion about the metronomes interpretation, that is, some editors may have used the double beat formulism, some may have used single beat. This is certainly reasonable for things that are blatantly unplayable or unsingable. Finally, the metronomes themselves may have not been standardized in terms of speed. This alone means we might have to throw old markings out entirely, since they may not be reliable in the first place, single or double beat. Even if Wim is correct about the theory that we used to use the double beat formulism, it still implies a change at some point in history. There were bound to be both late and early adaptors, and we wouldn't know who was who. I'm in favor of throwing them out entirely and playing how we feel like playing. Like Gould
There is no proof that there was ever a double-beat interpretation of the metronome. Wim Winters confidently asserts that it existed, but anybody who looks carefully at his sources will see that he has no proof at all, and his arguments depend on grotesque misinterpretations. It was always single-beat, so there was never a change from double-beat to single-beat, there was never any confusion. That is the only sane starting-point for discussions about nineteenth-century tempi.
Sorry, “only one” of them? When the tempo is the most important thing for a piece? My only complaint, rest of the video is a great essay on modern interpretation trains-of thought. Keep it up!
thank you!
In fact you are meeting Wim exactly on his most cloudy levels with even more absolute interpretations than him. Consider yourself one more windmill, lying in ruins, convinced they have become the empire state building. Quixote rides away unscathed. I love it.
Whatever it is you are smoking, I like it.
I am less than a dilettante in the area of classical music and not even minimally equipped to refute your confident assertion that Wim’s thesis is cracked, but I listened carefully your entire argument and did not hear you effectively address the central question of why the tempi affixed to classical manuscripts are consistently unplayable. Did I miss something?
Hello Robert, thanks so much for subscribing, and for your comment! You are absolutely right that I don't attempt to debunk Wim. Let me put it this way: if you asked every pianist alive who has played in one of the world's major halls whether Wim's theory is right, less than 0.1% would side with Wim. That doesn't prove him wrong, but if you think he is obviously wrong, as I do, it makes it less interesting to debate his views directly. Now to your question: it's just not true that most pieces are unplayable. If you take Beethoven in particular, his tempo indications are in the right ball park 95% of the time. With some contemporary composers you may get closer to 100%. Schumann and Chopin were less precise with their markings. But overall, only a very small fraction of pieces in wester classical music would be unplayable. You can see this for yourself by listening to Wim - in most of his performances doubling the tempo would be easily done.
But there is something else that's more important.
My main objection to Wim remains that you can't begin to talk about the tempo until you take into account every important aspect of the piece. Tempo choice is a product of a cumulative aesthetic sense of the piece. And the great composers knew that.
Do my comments help at all? Thank you again for stopping by!
Ps. If you did wish for a bit by bit debunking of Wim's view, check out the channel of Patrick Hemmerle - ruclips.net/video/rqkvAyMoJ04/видео.html
@@VladVexler Thanks for pointing out my misapprehension. My exposure to Authentic Sound began coincidentally with my purchase of a copy of Czerny exercises that have MM numbers that struck me as ridiculous. (Embarrassing disclosure: I’m a 63 year-old who has only in the last year quixotically decided to begin learning piano). This made Wim’s argument compelling for me. I somehow got the idea that he claimed ALL classical MM numbers were impossible. I enjoyed your presentation and look forward to more.
It was like listening to Donald Trump. If you rant long enough about something the people of your party will persuade themselves that you've actually made an argument. Lorenz Gadient found a simple, incontrovertible truth and now all these people are running around in a panic because Darwin just told them they're monkeys.
I myself, I'm happy that Winters et al are doing such a good job of restoring such a crucial element to this music. This is just another step in the right direction for the period instrument movement. It's a pity that some are so shaken by it.
@@PabloMelendez1969 There is a certain wild poetry to where Wim has ended up. And his videos are beautiful. And I am in favour of his channel growing. And indeed this is not a debunking video - that would mean you take your target’s view seriously, which I don’t.
@@Robertbrucelockhart so Robert, how are your piano lessons going? It’s wonderful you have jumped in!
yes...
Surely Glenn Gould beat Winters to the winning post on this. I think, of course, of his recording of Beethoven's Appassionata and all the Mozart sonatas. That said, Gould acted out of sheer perversity (I think most of what he did was deliberately perverse, in both word and deed), not some misguided musical theory.
You may enjoy this 10 min chat on how Gould used and misused his talent - ruclips.net/video/WdCSZODNnVs/видео.html
I quite agree, Gould in all kinds of ways pushes to loosen the hold of faithfulness to the score, whereas Wim insists on it.
@@VladVexler Thank you so much, Vlad. I greatly enjoyed listening to your observations about Gould, just as I also read with immense pleasure Anton Kuerti's article dissecting him some years back. With pleasure because these are things that I have increasingly felt needed to be said over the years. I used to wonder if I were missing something. After all, we know the likes of Karajan, et al., loved long telephone calls from Gould. Then it occurred to me that no one knows what Karajan was thinking during those calls. Gould's perversity might strike some as hugely entertaining. That I can see. But slowly over time I shook my head more and more, and then I heard him pontificating on why he regards Romantic composers as not worth the effort, this topped by what seemed almost a non sequitur about how he did find good things in, if I remember rightly, Boccherini, whatever that had to do with it! No, I thought, all this is just Gould's idea of how to epater la bourgeoisie. I have to doubt if he would get away even with his Bach if he emerged today, when we have heard Perahia, Ashkenazy, Hewitt, et al. Berg, Schoenberg, yes, but even his Bach is perverse, some tempi so much so that I didn't recognize works I've played myself. This is sad, but I do think it is so. Saying as much may, of course, bring a storm about one's head, for his devotees are very devoted indeed. I also have an idea that going to Russia right at the start was the best things Gould ever did for himself. The whole point about his immense Russian triumph was they did not know any better, and so it was a revelation, but what Gould revealed was not a truth.
P.S. I thank you so much for your blog! It is something of an oasis for me. And I say that in spite of what you said about Rachmaninoff not being a serious composer!! 😃
So, on one hand, the pieces were intended to have been played for and enjoyed by the people paying the composer. The other hand, they were impossible ideals meant for interperation and study, waiting for the future to grace the ear in total. We have that technology and can listen to it at the intended speed. It sounds like garbage on fire. There's no denying it.
All studies of art, especially ones steeped in prestige at a high level, are plagued with a sort of inbreeding of ideas because of it's pride and exclusivity. It's a case of the emperor's new clothes.
The music is bad and doesn't actually amuse hardly anybody. By the time they've settled into what they're hearing, the piece moves on. When a computer is used to play it at true speed, it sounds much worse.
Someone is wrong. Not sure who. But it's a fact that prestige is an inbreeding ground.
And, of course, this doesn't apply to all pieces from then.
The problem is that Wim is not a musicologist but a propagandist. He ignores, hides, obscures and distorts evidence and creates false premises in order to draw his audience to his conclusions. It appears you are entertaining several of these premises. Proceed with caution as very few who have fallen into the pit of Winterism have found their way out.
Look Fresh Revelry- all I can say is that one explores these pieces, and tries to tease out what they tell one about themselves. And that that’s a never ending process.
@@williamspringer737 wise words
The algorithm took me to your channel because of my interests in politics. This is the first of your musical content I have listened to. By chance I had heard Wim talk about his theory about metronome markings and found him compelling. Of course, this could be because of all the insanely fast tempi I am currently struggling against. But my real interest in this particular video is how you set up your premise. Yes, Wim has excellent linguistic and analytical skills, so his arguments are easily taken as authoritative. What you are saying about the context of interpretation - you are saying that evidence by itself is not enough. I am deeply disturbed by what is going on inside Russia. There are bits and pieces of Putin's arguments that could possibly have merit, taken on their own. But context ...
I am saving this video under "epistemology" - your thoughts bring clarity in these troubling times. Thank you.
Thank you for your words! It will be interesting to see what happens when I share more music content with the folks here for Russia analysis. I do think it’s all connected - but the connection isn’t obviously visible.
A couple of Spanish musicologist have recently put forth a compelling theory that explains the logic behind the unusual high metronome markings provided by Beethoven , which is one of Win’s arguments to defend his double beat theory. They found Beethoven was consistently misreading his metronome by taking as a reference the lower side of the trapezoidal weight when he should have used the upper side. They even found a handwritten annotation in the manuscript of the 9th symphony in which Beethoven, realizing his previous mistakes, clarifies that the two markings can be used: the one provided by the upper side and the lower side of the trapezium. This theory debunks once and for all the double beat nonsense
Thanks so much for your comment. Of course my view is that Wim doesn't need debunking, or at least doesn't need debunking from me - so this video is more a general reflection on the phenomenon. Nobody serious needs to debunk the idea of playing pieces twice as slow, any more than one needs to debunk flat earthism. The problem is never located in the judgement itself, but at a stage prior. Flat earthism is not a mistaken view about the physical properties of the earth!
@@VladVexler I fully agree on the double beat nonsense. With my comment I also tried to shed light on the fact that Beethoven’s metronome markings are way too fast, which has fed the imagination of double beat proponents. The truth is that nobody plays Beethoven as fast as he indicated it; hence the theory I heard about establishing that he got the markings wrong.
@@barralpha well I think he is 95% right with his markings, but certainly we need to judge for ourselves which tempo makes sense and sometimes correct him. It’s also helpful to distinguish Beethoven getting the tempo wrong vs Beethoven getting the tempo indication wrong. What tempo he intends is a product of all the things he cumulatively asks for in the piece.
This is a tempting hypothesis; however, it is unlikely to be valid for 2 reasons. The first one being that the shape of the cursor on old antique metronomes is such that it is unlikely that you would use the bottom of the cursor as the reference. Some models had the bottom part of the weight, rounded as opposed to being a straight line. Secondly, the norm was to sample your metronome and check that had 60 ticks per minute when the cursor was on 60, which was the reference point for each metronomes ( as a reference to heart beat) which means that the cursor had to be positioned the right way and we also know Maelzel being a personal friend of Beethoven have talked a lot about the metronome prior to Maelzel licensing it . So I much prefer to think that Beethoven only applied metronome marks for the first bars as he wrote it.
@@P.Robert-m8r these academics have published an article which probably answers your point. They had access to Beethoven’s metronome and they also argue that Beethoven himself was not a very techy guy, considering the metronome was a new invention. It is interesting, though, the two markings provided by Beethoven in his manuscript of the 9th symphony which seem to correspond to the higher and lower sides in the cursor of the metronome he used at that time.
Hi Vlad, I have some thoughts to share as a second year classical piano student at university. I am rather new to this whole beat theory and whatever else, and while I do find it deeply fascinating upon first impression, I believe I still have plenty of an outside perspective on it and so I can completely understand why you would think Wim is absolutely crazy for taking this approach to music interpretation. With respect, I think you have (in this video - perhaps you have more understanding now) some fundamental misunderstandings of the whole beat theory or whatever you want to call it.
In Wim's own words, unlike what you say right at the start, the whole beat interpretation of tempo is NOT a literal halving of the tempo marking given - it is simply subdividing the pulse, which granted does reduce the general speed, but it's not completely halved. There is also the consideration of tempo ordinario, the idea that time signatures themselves have an inherent tempo/pulse, which would more often than not reduce the halving effect quite a bit. You did not mention this idea anywhere - which I understand, given the one-take style, you probably did not script the video.
In addition, unlike what you say earlier in the video, he is NOT looking at the tempo markings or anything *in isolation.* Rather, in many many videos where he talks about his approach to finding tempo, he looks at a few things:
a) the notation
b) the time signature
c) THEN the tempo marking.
The harmonic texture of the piece also gets taken into account, but not as much as these three factors together. The subdivision of the pulse affects *everything.*
These are some of the ideas I noticed you did not really address in the way that I've observed Wim express them. I think you misrepresented his ideas, whether or not you did it intentionally or not does not matter in my opinion. I just wanted to point it out. At the end of the day, he might be some crazy guy who's overly obsessed with tempo; and yet even if that is the case, he is still offering some unique and personally very enjoyable interpretations of pieces I've heard millions of times, and yet never like he has played. There is at least that merit to his playing. Have a good day!
Another youngster who has been fooled by Winters . Let me explain . If you play any score metronomically in single beat it will be EXACTLY 2x faster than in double beat . This is mathematic . Don’t try to use the pulse as an explanation , it has nothing to do with it .
Metronome gives you the number of times a note value is played in a minute . That’s it .
Wim winters is confusing people purposely because he compares his tempo to modern renditions of pieces who even though are 100% in single beat don’t play all bars at the same beat because of musical phrases , ritardandos etc. So indeed a strict version of a score played metronomically in double beat is not twice slower than a musical rendition in single beat . But he is not comparing apples to apples . And actually in many cases he doesn’t even play metronomically either . But again double beat is by definition TWICE slower than single beat . If you are a student , take your metronome and check it yourself instead of listening to this charlatan
@@mktsound8240 Hi MKTsound, unfortunately you have misunderstood me from the word go. I suppose you only read my first sentence and went on to respond? Because in my original comment, I demonstrated how in the context of Wim's perspective, there are other factors in the score that contribute to choosing tempo, i.e the notation and the actual time signature. These in fact come before the tempo marking itself. That is why subdividing the tempo marking in fact does NOT literally halve it, in this interpretation. Tempo Ordinario is also a factor, which I repeat, Vlad did not mention one bit. I do not blame him, but I digress.
Musically speaking, when it comes to finding tempo, I don't see how you can say the pulse, or meter, has "nothing to do with it," when that is a fundamental element of understanding rhythm and by extension tempo in western music. When you have a time signature such as 4/4, what you are looking at is literally four beats in a bar. In reality that is kinda vague, and honestly says practically nothing by itself about what the music's rhythm or general feeling will actually be. When interpreting a score, you are literally subdividing the time signature inherently. This is one of the ways the pulse is so fundamental. This applies also to when you are listening to music; you feel the pulse by subdividing the beats you hear. This is a natural way to do it.
Of course, instead of requiring you to subdivide (like notation inherently often does), composers could have written time signatures to literally represent the note values in the music, for example in Czerny's op 299 no 1 for Piano where the most consistent note value is a 16th, he could have chosen 16/16 instead of 4/4. But he didn't. I do not know your musical background, but perhaps you would agree that subdivision of notation is an inherently musical thing. I find it not only logical but genuinely musically consistent to subdivide a metronome marking's note value, just like you do a time signature, which I emphasise represents literal note values as well.
I invite you to actually watch Wim's videos with an open mind, since what I can observe from your response is one of a confirmation bias. Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems as though you haven't given his ideas a fair chance. You've simply repeated what Vlad said in the video himself, which I believe is inherently misunderstanding the perspective of the topic he's talking about. In fact, you do not even need to watch his videos; you just have to think about it mathematically, which I suppose is ironic given you insisted on a mathematical explanation yourself. Why don't you provide to me a single performance of the hammerklavier sonata that conforms to the literal tempo marking in the 1st movement? Or Czerny's op 299 no 1? Or 21? I have tried, and there is none that has done it - not even Lang Lang. The question is, why not? In Czerny's case, if he literally says to play to the metronome marks he gives, why is there not a single recording of someone doing it for these examples? They're not exactly isolated examples, either. I am talking about famous pieces especially. Anyway, one answer - if not THE answer - is simple, and even musical.
Occam's Razor suggests the simplest answer is probably the most reasonable; at first to find the tempo using this idea you might say, just look at the tempo marking; then in many cases you find it's too fast, so in this case, Occam's Razor suggests those speeds are simply too fast to actually play. Then you look for another solution. Have you ever tried to play those kinds of studies at full, literal tempo? I have, and it's not possible. The kinds of rates at which you have to play notes per second for those extreme tempo markings is ridiculous, coming again from a composer who specifically says to play to the metronome marking. We're talking about sacrilegious-flight-of-the-bumblebee-violinist level speeds. 15+ notes/second. Even almost 30 notes/second. And those are the kinds of things you are supposed to play daily, repeatedly without stopping, until you complete it fully. These are for students, keep in mind. Beginner students.
Is it not incredibly ironic that the classical world is so obsessed with following the score and playing what the composer intended, and yet this fundamental part of playing music is dismissed as just something you have to vaguely follow? In your own words, take Czerny's works, "take your metronome and check it yourself instead of listening to this charlatan", except I do not think anyone is a charlatan.
Let me just say that I actually do not have a personal problem with modern interpretations of tempo at all, I enjoy listening to all of it. My point in this is to clarify my thoughts on Wim's ideas, and to propose that there is at least some mathematical and musical consistency in the overall topic. I apologise for a lengthy read, I hope that what I say makes sense to you. Have a good day and live through music, always!
@@andreasvandieaarde
1) Tempo Ordinario is also a factor, which I repeat, Vlad did not mention one bit. I do not blame him, but I digress.
Non sense. We are talking about interpretation of metronome indication by Maetzel . Tempo ordinario was used prior to metronome invention and mostly used in baroque music ( Bach)
2) Musically speaking, when it comes to finding tempo, I don't see how you can say the pulse, or meter, has "nothing to do with it," when that is a fundamental element of understanding rhythm and by extension tempo in western music.
Pulse has nothing to do with tempo. Talk to your teacher or document yourself. Pulse is linked to rhythm and musical phrasing, not to speed. Tempo only dictates how many notes are played in a minute. That’s it.
3) When you have a time signature such as 4/4, what you are looking at is literally four beats in a bar. In reality that is kinda vague. etc
Really?? I mean are you serious here?
I can see the root cause of your problem. You are confused mixing various concepts:
Tempo, pulse, time signature, note values and subdivisions.
What you really have to understand are strong beats and weak beats for the various time signatures. That is what matter the most to feel the music. In a given time signature you can change the note value and the corresponding MM accordingly and the music will be 100% identical. Just refer to Maetzel tables. What give the real musical feel is how the melodic line is phrased as a layer above the weak and strong beats,
4) invite you to actually watch Wim's videos with an open mind, since what I can observe from your response is one of a confirmation bias. Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems as though you haven't given his ideas a fair chance.
Wrong again, I subscribed to years channel about 6 years. I got banned 2.5 years ago because I posted counter evidence on one video he made about Mersenne which was a pile completely wrong. If you really investigate and visit board criticising Wim Winters, you will find out that he banned an incredible number of people including performing musicians simply because they provided counter proof.
5) You've simply repeated what Vlad said in the video himself, which I believe is inherently misunderstanding the perspective of the topic he's talking about. In fact, you do not even need to watch his videos; you just have to think about it mathematically, which I suppose is ironic given you insisted on a mathematical explanation yourself.
I won’t even bother replying here.
6) Why don't you provide to me a single performance of the hammerklavier sonata that conforms to the literal tempo marking in the 1st movement?
Even Bernard Ruchti who is adept of slow music can play the intro of the hammerklavier at tempo, It is on his channel . Artur Schnabel who was the first pianist to record the 32 sonatas is pretty much aligned with the tempo even he chose to play the intro in 131/ instead of 138. In all cases, people interpret the piece musically not metronomically. This isa piece of music not a midi file played by a robot.
7) Or Czerny's op 299 no 1? Or 21? I have tried, and there is none that has done it - not even Lang Lang. The question is, why not? In Czerny's case, if he literally says to play to the metronome marks he gives, why is there not a single recording of someone doing it for these examples?
Do the following searches on RUclips . I can’t copy the addresses as RUclips blocks it
Czerny 1,2,3 at tempo
Search for PianothShaveck Czerny Op. 299 N. 1, 2 and 3 at Czerny's tempo
PianothShaveck is an experimented pianist with excellent technique
Czerny no 4 at tempo
Search for
Joao Terceira Czerny op 299/4 at tempo - Asiya Korepanova
Asiya Korepanova is a very well known Russian pianist , this video was originally produced on her Twitter site as explained in the video description
And more on Czerny …
Search for Francesco Libetta Czerny , Italian virtuoso
He has recorded the quasi totality of Czerny difficult opuses 299, 740 … at tempo and has given lot of concerts
The worst of that is that Wim Winters knows all of that. There is a famous exchange on the historical performance facebook group with Wim admitted that PianothShaveck
Had played 299/1 at tempo and then he said. Now try no 2, and this why the video 1,2,3 was produced. WIm Winters has never posted anything on that facebook group since and obviously never mentioned it on his channel.
8) Have you ever tried to play those kinds of studies at full, literal tempo? I have, and it's not possible. The kinds of rates at which you have to play notes per second for those extreme tempo markings is ridiculous, coming again from a composer who specifically says to play to the metronome marking. We're talking about sacrilegious-flight-of-the-bumblebee-violinist level speeds. 15+ notes/second. Even almost 30 notes/second.
Just watch the video called Winters debunked by Authentic sound ( in two words)
The video shows a concert of Lang Lang playing the flight of bumble bee at 15.45 notes per second with a chronometer
The original concert in 2006 can be found f you search Lang Lang - Flight of the Bumblebee
So I am afraid you need to do your homework prior to engaging into tempo discussion.
My advice would be to check by yourself before you believe whatever Wim Winters says
When I call him a charlatan, I don’t do it for the sake of ad hominem attack. I use this attribute because he misinterprets very often and intentionally official sources
Just watch the video Wim Winters & the double beat fallacy by period instruments
It clearly shows the magnitude of the problem and the errors and false claims made by this pseudo musicologist.
@@mktsound8240 Unfortunately I just lost my first response just now! I will try to recreate what I said (I don't think I will remember all of it). :^)
Thank you for sharing these videos with quite impressive tempos. I am especially impressed with the Czerny op 299 no 2 and 3 - no 1 wasn't quite consistently to the tempo, but the following two exceeded the marking. Also the no 4. Very impressive. One gripe I have with that particular no 1-3 video is the suggestion that with "reasonable Piano technique," these "easy Czerny etudes" are possible to be played to those speeds. To me, that dismisses the frankly unrealistic speeds that you have to hit for what I think can be agreed upon is a target demographic of beginner students when it comes to playing those pieces. Even at the conservatory where I study classical Piano, I haven't heard anyone play those opening etudes to speed, with no disrespect to them. And while I definitely grant that those etudes are more-or-less genuinely playable, is it realistic to expect those results from beginners? I honestly do not think so. We might have to agree to disagree on that.
My thinking goes along the lines of this: *either it's all okay, or none of it's okay.* I am pleasantly surprised that these famous etudes are in fact playable, maybe not realistically playable for a beginner but still. The issue comes, however, in the fact that Czerny as an example has other etudes with even faster tempo markings, also for beginners. The kinds of studies where you are to play them daily, without stopping, and at faster tempos than op 299's famous works. Do you just dismiss those kinds of tempos altogether? Or should an alternative perspective not be considered? Or do you think 30 notes/second is possible to play on Piano, especially on 19th century fortepianos? As I mentioned, no 21 of his op 299 isn't quite 30 notes/second, but it's faster than no 1-4. There are recordings that play quite fast, but the point is it's damn near impossible to find one to tempo (I say damn near because I haven't searched the entire internet for recordings of this piece).
I also appreciate the Lang Lang video you shared, I actually forgot I had seen it many times before! I would argue that playing chromatic scales at fast speeds is technically actually easier than straight scales, but that's a moot point ;) I will not deny that, say, 15 notes a second is possible to play. Sacrilegious flight of the bumblebee guy proves this as well as Lang Lang here (I haven't sought the video you mentioned specifically, but I will trust you on this). But it's not ridiculous to note that these are exceptional players, correct? (maybe not sacrilegious boi but to each their own). Perhaps there was a more artistic reason for Lang Lang to not play Op 299 no 1 for his Piano Book album to speed after all, at a very very fast rate of I think 14 notes/second or something - although it really does seem to me like he plays as fast as he can there, which again I might argue that scales are technically more challenging to play extensively versus chromatic scales. Regardless, thank you for sharing.
I have some other issues with the videos you shared. What puzzles me incredibly is that you mentioned Bernhard Ruchti playing the Hammerklavier intro to tempo, and so I looked his RUclips channel up as you said you can find it there. To my surprise, the only thing to do with that sonata and him playing is him performing according to Franz Liszt's performance duration, reported to be about an hour for the entire thing. Bernhard plays that intro at a much slower tempo than what most current performers play! Why did you share this with me? I appreciate you sharing him as a Pianist, but I am confused as to what you were trying to prove or demonstrate there...he does not play the intro remotely close to the literal interpretation of the tempo marking. If anything, he supports the idea of the double-beat interpretation.
With the Artur Schnabel example as well...he plays very fast, that's true, but again...he does not play to tempo, as you yourself said. That is my original point with my request. This further begs the question...if Franz Liszt's performance was closer to an hour than 40 minutes, which is the average performance now and like the one you provided, was Liszt playing at a ridiculously slow tempo? Because if the story is true that Hector Berlioz was there to witness him playing it, and praised his performance as the ultimate perfect interpretation including to do with tempo changes not being permitted, then how does this make sense? What do you think of that?
Now, I have to ask. What is your musical experience? Because I cannot tell where you are coming from when it comes to discussion of musical concepts like tempo, pulse etc. Pulse is absolutely related to tempo. I cannot be bothered trying to explain further, until you explain where you're coming from or unless you want me to. I appreciate you letting me know that you followed Wim previously for many years, only to get banned from his channel or something? I stand corrected, there. Seems Wim has some issues with contrary opinions. Although, I have certainly seen responses he's made to people asking genuine questions...perhaps he has changed his behaviour since when you were banned, then.
I will watch the double beat fallacy video, thank you for suggesting it. Please note that I am not interested in purely defending one opinion over another, I am just genuinely questioning some assumptions about performance practice but am very much open to information being provided that shows clear solutions. Confusingly, some of your demonstrations go against what you say yourself, but regardless, thank you for responding and I hope you have a good day!
@@andreasvandieaarde ‘One gripe I have with that particular no 1-3 video is the suggestion that with "reasonable Piano technique," these "easy Czerny etudes" are possible to be played to those speeds. To me, that dismisses the frankly unrealistic speeds that you have to hit for what I think “
I have to agree here. Op 299 is definitely for advanced pianists if you intend to hit the target speed. Czerny has composed an incredible number of etudes and exercises and for instance op 599 is specifically composed for beginners and one could immediately see the huge difference between the 2 books. For any reason, Wim Winters has propagated the idea that a beginner should be able to play op 299 sight reading it which is pure non sense. If you want to reach a fast tempo, you will have to practice an impressive number of hours.
‘either it's all okay, or none of it's okay.’
Not necessarily as you have to bear in mind that there were a lot editing and printing errors at the time, as typewriters didn’t exist yet so editors had to work from manuscripts.
Most composers will check thoroughly major work ( sonatas, symphonies…) but it is obvious that Czerny or Isidor Phillip editions contains mistakes in some exercises . For instance in the famous ‘Exercices for the Higher Pianoforte Technic’ from I.Phillip you can find exercises exceeding 50 notes/sec , even if double beat was true , it would be unplayable in double beat. And no I don’t believe you can play 30 notes/sec.
On the Hammerklavier
Ruchti had made 2, 3 videos on the Hammerklavier in one of them, he explains why he choose his slow tempo and demonstrate the opening in single beat to prove he could play it if he wanted too
Regarding the Hammerklavier , also worth noting that if you watch the video that Wim Winters had made on the subject called ‘Liszt's 1836 Hammerklavier Version: Proving the Impossible Possible?’
He states that 1st movement in single beat should last 8.34 minutes obviously stating it is not possible to achieve .
You can find Friedrich Gulda 1970 recording in 7:48, Yvonne lefebure 1973 recording 8:16 all even faster than Wim radical view on the subject!!
On the pulse matter If you start learning jazz, you will grab the concept very quickly, in fact in classical music school , rhythm and related concepts is usually poorly taught , so you have an excuse . Polyrhythms are hell for a lot of classical pianists for this reason .To clarify the relation between pulse and tempo is that tempo is the speed at which the pulse is beating. But pulse is more complex than it seems .When pulses are played with variously accented phrases, this can produce several pulse groups such as strong-weak and strong-weak-weak,. In other words, they are close but also different. But in all cases in you divide the tempo by 2 the end result is that the individual pulse or the group of pulse will be played twice slower .
You asked the question about my experience, after graduating in a musical conservatory in early 2000 I chose to move from classical to jazz and have learned my life playing in jazz clubs and then stopped to work in a recording studio. But I still love classical a lot and play most days.
Have a good day too and good luck with learning piano 🎹 it is the best thing in life .
OK. So why are you not playing the music you talked about up to the metronome speed? I would be happy to hear you you do that. Secondly, its not playing TWICE as slow, in fact it is way more than half. But the key thing is to hear yo play the Chopin studies up to the noted metronome markings as interpreted today.
Hello Dennis thanks for taking time and sharing your question. I can't accept it I'm afraid, as it is precisely what I label in this video as 'walking to the end of the earth to discover whether it is flat'.
Sorry to interrupt , but your comment doesn't make sense to me. Do you need to have a diploma in astronomy or physic to argue with flat earthers? Are you even capable of playable all Chopin's work in double beat to make the call ? Apparently some bars of concerto 2 are not even playable in double beat if you want to respect the metronome 100%. All of Chopin etudes have been played at speed and for sure only top professional pianist are able to do it , same applies to Liszt transcendental etudes. So what ? Are you able to do a tennis first serve as fast as Djokovic ? 99.99% of tennis players cannot. You can as well pretend this is fake and all his videos have been accelerated. In other words, we are inclined to admit that extraordinary performances exist in sport, in chess or other disciplines , but for any reasons double beaters would love to believe that such level of 'virtuosity' doesn't exist in music.
@@Md-cl6lh Thanks so much for your comment. I'll just answer it personally if that's OK! On this channel my own ethics are - I won't talk about a particular stretch of music in detail, unless I have felt it under my fingers. I think in a world of fake news that's fair. But I don't feel the need to do this when I just mention pieces in passing.
@@VladVexler Point taken, nevertheless , I strongly believe that Wim Winters theory can be debunked solely with thought experience as it has inherent contradictions and impossibilities that cannot be resolved.
@@Md-cl6lh I think we don’t even need that. All we need is to tell the difference between being completely and utterly nuts and not being completely and utterly nuts! 😎 Plus I actually think Wim is less sincere than people think.
I wonder if you have read the excellent book called ‘truth and truthfulness’ by Sir Bernard Arthur Owen Williams , English philosopher. If you haven’t’ , I highly recommend it , I read it during my holidays . In a nutshell , the author explains the mechanism by which the legitimate need to ensure that the information and knowledge transmitted by institutions can be trusted leads to conspiracy even in the absence of any source invalidating this knowledge. Sir Williams died in 2006 , but whoever reads that book will bet that he was referring to Wim Winters ahead of time !
Yes hee hee I am an expert in that book. Bernard died in June 2003. My work is continuous with his. And my PhD work was on his great friend Isaiah Berlin. Bernard rushed TT, because he was dying. So the book would have taken a slightly different shape if he had more time. My latest Nietzsche video is very much in Bernard's spirit, by the way! I will be doing a couple of very long episodes on Bernard on this channel in the near future! It's so wonderful you have read and valued TT!
@@VladVexler I will definitely watch your video ! I didn’t know he was dying while writing TT .I enjoyed that book thoroughly .
I think you are oversimplifying what Win Winters says. E g. He is not saying that you should cut by half every music sheet tempo. For example, as nobody plays a Czseny study in the metronomic tempo written on the sheet, the resulting tempo could be a 70%/80% speed of tenpo you are used to hear. Secondly, he does not criticize common tempi, so he is not saying that playing at common speed is wrong. He just says that there are chances that, hiatorically, may be playing speeds were inferior than today. It's the whole world that went through furios acceleration of everybody lives during last centuries. Just think about comunications, travels, distances... everything. Think about what was Bach life. Everything was slow and there were no expectations in delivery times. That's also why Bach and others were so prolific: they didn't have to run, run endlessly through hundreds of things daily, and didn't have internet, so they could focus and take their time. So its not that unreasonable to think that playing speeds where also less demanding. It makes sense.
Your point about the fact tempo isn't all, but just one part is good.
Is this some bedroom roleplay practice or are you being serious?
🤣 is that a response to the video or one of the comments ?
@@VladVexler to your video.
As a newb I enjoy the debate. Nobody knows the answer and neither do I enjoy the debate in that respect. It adds some drama to the classical music world and night draw in more people. It could be a gimmick but i don't mind. I enjoy the intellectual debate and the music. I've listened to music I would never have heard and been asked a simple question. . Which tempo do you prefer. Quite often I enjoy the slower... The majestic bits sound majestic, the bouncy bits sound bouncy. Also some of wims interpretations sound very convincing... The metronome one in particular. Also I don't think you answered the question of unplayable tempo indications... If the tempo is unplayable then it is not up for interpretation... It is unplayable... That said I am a newb. Thanks for the vid
Understand you are new to the debate . You will realise soon that in fact there is no debate . Wim Winters entertain the idea of a debate when there isn’t one . All scholars ans anyone who has done a bit of research on the subject are unanimous on the subject. Double beat is a fallacy , it has been proposed initially by Talsma in 1980 , was debunked . Lorenz Gadient and Wim Winters have tried to resurrect the dead body but have faced the same rebuttal. Note that the main driver behinds Wim Winters approach is essentially commercial because at the moment ( for how long?) he is making a living out of it. The question of score unplayability is not really relevant to the debate . It represent less than 1 /1000 of scores in the 19th century , the proportion of unplayable tempi is even higher in the 20th century , so it is not a relevant argument. Moreover what Wim winters considered unplayable ( czerny op 299 , Chopin études op10 and op25) have been played at speed and are available on RUclips) . The worst part of the whole story is that he has banned all people proving he was wrong on his channel and removed all links proving he is wrong . I’m sorry to put it that way , but he is just a scammer.
Yes, agreed that Wim Winters music videos look aesthetically gorgeous. Good audio too. And back when he played I think, the Bach English Suites on his Clavichord, I was hooked. But when he moved to Beethoven sonatas and Chopin Ballades at half tempo (or less), that was clearly absurd.
But I can't help thinking that if you play something like a Mozart sonata super - slow, it's a bit like a pianist getting started with it by practising at that tempo. One then notices features in the music that may not pop out at full tempo. Works for the uninitiated in the audience too. Works well for keyboard players because they don't run out of bow or run out of breath. The difference is that we don't stay at that tempo forever.
That also makes me think perhaps that Wim's technical abilities may conveniently benefit from his "revolutionary" approach.
All the dislikes show how Wim Winter’s fans can only react in superficial ways and can’t engage deeply enough to start a debate in the comments, where they’re basically absent
Had the same feeling about that. In fact it is a clear illustration of the fact that they don’t want to be proven they are wrong so anything adverse to their belief is considered as an ´enemy’ . It is a reaction that is found in all sects or cults.
Hee hee but you know, history will wash away Wim's idea quite rapidly. So I don't really feel it as a threat. So I am not sad about a lack of constructive conversation. Moreover, people do get something out of his channel. In fact quite a lot!
You’re talking two times too quickly.
Had to go 2X faster to accommodate the whole world which is deluded about tempo.
Have you debunked that pieces from the school of velocity are impossible to play in single beat for the MM markings of Czerny, either by the composers or his editions of other Composer music? Have you addressed contemporary single escapement Viennese fortepianos incapable of repetition of the same note in single beat? Or that the majority of Pianists do not play 100% at single beat but somewhere around 70%. Or that even Valentina Lisitsa at her fastest cannot exceed 90% Czerny's MM indications (in single beat) for the Inventions of J S Bach, even on a modern piano. Those are items that I've seen raised on the Authentic Sound Channel. I've read Bachscholar's comments, but he never addressed Burgmüller: Harmony of the Angels, Op. 100 No. 21 sounds more like the devil at single beat, he doesn't play at single beat in his video, and when one of the replies as to speed for the piece wasn't single beat. I would like to hear your thoughts.
For your info, Massimiliano Genot has recorded op 299 on fortepiano at tempo. Fair to say it does attract views. The main reason you don't see the big boys spending time on op 299 is that it is not really concert material. Also Alberta Sanna in his hammerklavier video deviates from the double beat tempo by a huge factor in various places, so how comes ?
@Alan Stuppel Have you heard the Burgmuller Piece L'Harmonie Des Ange played in single beat? I do not say it's impossible to play, but it doesn't sound anything like the Harmony of Angels, unless fallen angels. At MM 1/4=152
@@P.Robert-m8r To my knowledge, any of Czerny's exercises with repeated notes in fast tempi, cannot be performed in single beat on a Viennese Forte Piano's single escapement action. I wasn't discussing Alberto Sanna's Beethoven. Thank you for alerting me to Massimiliano Genot, however, without exception so far, including Lang Lang hasn't hit the actual the number of notes per second. This RUclips video raises the issue that in single beat in Czerny's other exercises, the 20 notes per second (not possible on a Steinway). ruclips.net/video/W9-AjeeBfaU/видео.html&ab_channel=AuthenticSound Individuals who claim single beat performance generally are less than the speed.
@Alan Stuppel If you have time compare Hans Bischoff's Tempi MM numbers for the inventions (circa mid 1880s) vs Czerny's tempi and MM numbers from his edition. I have a graph of both that I would be happy to share. If there's a way to IM through RUclips, I can supply this. Invention V: Where Czerny has 1/4= 144 Allegro vivace, vs. and Bischoff list 1/4=72 Allegretto espressivio. If we for the sake of argument have Czerny as a Double Beater and Bischoff single beater, then Czerny's concept mid century of Allegro Vivace has slowed in three decades to a slower Allegretto before 1888.
I don't know your concepts of aesthetics, however heavenly depiction of angels playing harps is more toward the slower side than towards speed metal interpretation. FYI Bachscholar's speed, faster than most is pleasant, but it isn't single beat. ruclips.net/video/LsbcYI96a3U/видео.html&ab_channel=BachScholar
@@Renshen1957 First of all, you haven't properly checked the timing of each individual piece. If you take op 299/1 as an example, the video length of Genot is 30 secondes but the playing time is less than 25 secondes, 100% on tempo.
Secondly ,I am sure you know that first fortepiano with double escapement was released by Erard in 1823, and I am also certain you know that Czerny's Op 299 was first published in 1833 , i.e. 10 years after, so the limitation regarding repeated notes is irrelevant in this context.
As a general guideline I would not recommend using Authentic Sound videos for valid information , they are usually full of mistakes , misinterpretations and erroneous historical statements.
The comment I made about the Hammerklavier version was in response to your comment about modern musicians not playing all bars at tempo . Of course they don''t ! No serious musician plays music like a midi file. Even Czerny in op 500 recommends to slow down tempo in some passages when required technically or when required musically. And Alberto Sanna does the same in double beat.
More generally some interpreters take huge liberty in their playing when it comes to tempo. Gould being probably a good example, capable of playing scores much slower in some cases and capable at the same time of playing pieces at reckless speed. So this not strictly related to the adherence to a particular strict tempo system but about personal choices.
Your views on Wim Winters' perspective may certainly be correct, but I do not appreciate the mockery in the introduction.
Thank you, yes, that's a difference of style or sensibility. This video is more about sensibility, and less about sense. I will be sharing one more dose of commentary on Wim in 2022. With some new thoughts. But that too won't be argument for and against, but an exploration of how musical traditions endure. Hope you are well around the holiday period.
I agree. Starting your argument with ad hominems only weakens your position. It looks weak.
@@PbPomper Wim's closed-minded, deliberate, intolerant, and unmusical attacks on aesthetic and historical truths deserve only mockery and contempt. Music is a very serious thing; and methodical attacks on its life-force must be treated harshly. Wim's assertions, to any true musician, are not matters for discussion or of opinion: rather, they fall outside of both musical and scholarly discourse. He who does not know Music may have difficulty understanding this: understandable though this may be, it does not grant such individuals a moral right to participate in any meaningful discussion of the Wim Winters phenomenon. No one has the right to debate quantum mechanics unless he has mastered the underlying math and physics; and Music is no diffferent in this respect. It is axiomatic that anyone who can accept Wim's style of performance as valid outside of the practice room is no true musician. That's just the way it is.
Lol...I love it....