Content area
Full Text
In a recent essay in this journal, "Mabels Role in Beethoven's Symphonic Metronome Marks," I demonstrated that these marks correspond almost exactly to recommended tempos on a chart that Johann Nepomuk Mälzel devised to help composers find a metronome mark for their pieces. ' A rigid mathematical chart, however, cannot address the many variables that determine tempo: the complexity of the texture, whether contrapuntal or homophonic; the harmonic rhythm; the desired affect of a piece; the number of voices; the room's acoustics, etc. The metronome marks for Beethoven's first eight symphonies, many of which are amazingly rapid, were published in Leipzig's Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung in 1 8 1 7, most likely at Mälzel s instigation as part of his campaign to market the metronome as his own invention. While the numbers on his chart rarely yield an accurate tempo, musicians of the period were unaware of this fact because they were unable to keep time with the newly invented metronome - a skill they acquired only gradually.
Following Mälzel's example, Johann Nepomuk Hummel included a chart of recommended metronome marks for slow, moderate, and fast tempos in his fortepiano method of 1828. Example 1 derives from Hummel's second edition, and its last note in the "slow" category of the first line lacks a flag; it is correct in both his 1828 edition and his French edition.2 Hummel's chart differs from Mälzel's in only the following respects:
1) Mälzel's beat subdivisions, which extend to the eighth note = 840, are removed.
2) Marks for 3/4 end at the dotted half note =110, instead of 140.
3) 3/8 is not divided into categories of slow, moderate, and fast, but has only one: "for moderate and fast."
Tab. 1.
Besides Beethoven's marks, the other major source cited today in support of rapid tempos for music of this period is Hummel's arrangement from 1823/24 of Mozart's last six symphonies for flute, violin, violoncello, and fortepiano, in which he added metronome marks (Table 1) that correspond closely to the categories in his chart. In 1839 Carl Czerny published four-hand fortepiano arrangements of the same symphonies with metronome marks nearly identical to Hummel's.3 As Johannes Brahms noted in a letter to Clara Schumann, metronome marks taken on separate occasions by...