Why we love and need the Ninth

[Harvey]

This seems a good summary:
Pondering Beethoven's Metronome

More from Smithsonian:
Was Beethoven's Metronome Wrong?

And
Technical Journal Article on it.

Note I just skimmed the first article.

[AeolianHarp]

Harvey the article on tempo is very interesting; to me especially this bit:

That tradition, several recent musicologists have persuasively argued, has seen a steady entropy of tempo over the past 200 years. In other words, Western classical music has slowed down. There are cosmic explanations for this phenomenon: tempos have slowed out of a search for mystical profundity, or from the need to insert ever-more-niggling expressive nuances, or from a sheer loss of vital energy in our culture.

But it seems to me that simpler physical reasons may also have played their part. Symphony halls are larger today than they used to be, instruments make a louder, heavier sound and there are more of them playing together in a modern orchestra. All of this encourages slower tempos for more precise articulation, and puts an interpretive premium on weighty, ponderous sonorities.

But when Beethoven is played on original instruments, in modest-sized halls and with a performance style in conformity with what we know of the period (less vibrato, more fluid bowing, etc.), then the tempos suddenly make sense. What might sound rushed with a modern orchestra now seems fleet and intense.


Interesting about Toscanini too- I have a recording of him on CD conducting the Egmont, Leonore, Symphony no 3 from a 1939 broadcast.

[Harvey]

I must watch that! Hey Harvey have you noticed how fast the Ninth they play on his radio is ( it is played on historical instruments)? There are not so many pauses...was this how it orginally was premiered?

It is on now, first movement. They are playing Claudio Abbado with the Berlin Philharmonic.

[Harvey]

Harvey the article on tempo is very interesting; ...

Excellent information in your quote. Here is another article that has some excellent discussion of the tempo/metronome markings:

DG article on Beethoven

[AeolianHarp]

Excellent information in your quote. Here is another article that has some excellent discussion of the tempo/metronome markings:

DG article on Beethoven

Glad you liked it and thanks for your link!

[Harvey]

Remarkable how the size of a venue can have such an effect on a piece of music. Also was just reading from a CD review on Amazon what I always suspected to be true, that too large of a choir will often result in muddied choral singing. My theory is that occurs because of minute differences in timing between the singers, further complicated by the likely fact that the more singers you get together at once the more likely they will not be as good of singers (after all, there are only so many really good singers, right), and so that will contribute to poorer timeing and vocal quality.

Yet when I saw Messiah last December with a 200 voice choir, the choral parts were very clear. Small venue, Hill Auditorium at Univeristy of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and Hill is supposed to be one of the accoustically best venues in the world too--that surely helped.

Buy hey, there is a 10,000 voice Ninth from Japan that sure sounds wonderful and clear to me, and the soloists are fantastic too.

[AeolianHarp]

I still haven't got round to watching that Ninth!

[dahc]

I believe that there is a little bit of the Ninth in all the masters works. The culmination of his his life work reflects.

[AeolianHarp]

I believe that there is a little bit of the Ninth in all the masters works. The culmination of his his life work reflects.

It is noticeable in the Choral Fantasy.