The Short

CHOICE OF TEMPO 289
articulated, or that underlay many musicians’ comments on tempo, was the degree of deviation from the ‘ideal’ tempo
that was possible without altering the intended impact of the music. The acceptable margins of variation cannot be
exactly prescribed, but it is obvious to every accomplished musician that, while it would be inartistic to insist on a
single immutable tempo for any piece of music in all circumstances, music can be performed at tempos so different
from those envisaged by the composer that the character of the composition is completely altered. Thus Quantz
conceded that it would ‘do no harm … if a melancholy person, in accordance with his temperament, were to play a
piece moderately fast, but still well, and if a more volatile person played it with greater liveliness’; 527 yet he also stressed:
We see daily how often tempo is abused, and how frequently the very same piece is played moderately at one time,
and still more quickly at another. It is well known that in many places where people play carelessly, a presto is often
made an allegretto and an adagio an andante, doing the greatest injustice to the composer, who cannot always be
present. 528
Other eighteenth-century musicians were more insistent on the necessity for a composer's tempo to be adhered to
within a quite narrow margin. Kirnberger, for instance, felt that only the composer was in a position to dictate the
correct tempo and that ‘a little degree more or less can do much damage to the effect of a piece’; 529 and he suggested
that for greater certainty composers should append to their pieces a note of their duration. A similar recommendation
was made by Johann Adolf Scheibe in about the same period. 530 There was scarcely a German theorist of the late
eighteenth century who did not stress the importance of finding the right tempo. Among composers and performers
Pisendel was noted for his extraordinary ability to divine a composer's tempo intentions, 531 and Mozart's confident
mastery of everything concerning tempo is reflected in his often-quoted letters on the subject. 532 Most accomplished
eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century musicians would have been confident that they could discern a careful
composer's intentions with a high degree of accuracy, but the meaning of the clues and instructions to which they were
sensitive were largely forgotten during the nineteenth century and are very imperfectly understood by most performers
of the late twentieth century.
527 Versuch, XVII, 7, §55.
528 Ibid.
529
In Sulzer, Allgemeine Theorie, art. ‘Bewegung’.
530
Ueber die musikalische Composition, erster Theil: Die Theorie der Melodie und Harmonie (Leipzig, 1773), 299.
531
See Türk, Klavierschule, I, §75.
532
See Anderson, The Letters of Mozart.