Klarinet Archive - Posting 000585.txt from 1995/06

From: "Charles M. Belveal" <cbelveal@-----.US>
Subj: Tempo
Date: Sun, 25 Jun 1995 19:59:06 -0400

I've seen discussions on this board about "correct" tempo for
various pieces before but I would like to ask what do words like largo -
adagio - allegro - presto actually say about the way a piece is played??
My music dictionary - a not too great one - gives relative definitions
such as "Adagio means slowly" and "Largo is very slow". My metronome
is more specific indicating that adagio is between 66 and 76 - but then,
again, my old Seth-Thomas indicates adagio is considerably faster at
about 98 to 124.
I am interested in playing a certain movement which is marked
Adagio with a quarter note = 42 which, as you can see, does not agree with
what either of the metronomes indicate is adagio tempo. I've listened to
several professional performers play this passage at metronome tempos from
42 to 66 about . Stoltzman played it at about 42 and Meyer plays it at
about 66 and a couple of others somewhere in between.
I think the thing that bothers me most about this - I know that
the metronome is a fairly recent development and that many composers
didn't - even don't - use these markings. However, I would think that
such words as adagio or allegro or andante were put there by the composer
- whether Bach or Strauss or whomever - and should reflect what he, the
composer, wanted. I can't help but wonder if I have missed something here.
Is a simple musical dictionary definition an adequate definition of these
terms? Is this another place where the performer is expected to "do his
own thing"? Have the meanings or their degrees changed over the years?
Is it even correct to think of them as tempo markings?
I sincerely hope that this subject is not too trivial to warrant your
comments. I have spent a good bit of time considering it in the past few
weeks and look forward to seeing comments from this group.

Marvin Belveal

   
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