The Short

392 TEMPO MODIFICATION
noted for his regularity of tempo (any deviation from which, as the quotation cited earlier indicates, he regarded as a
scarcely excusable indulgence).
In 1840 Schindler conceded that ‘it goes without saying that in orchestral music in general it is not permissible [he
seems really to mean ‘practicable’] to change the tempo so often as in chamber music’, 768 but he went on to suggest that
a much greater degree of tempo modification was appropriate in the performance of Beethoven's symphonies than
had hitherto been the case. He argued that the tradition of ‘in tempo’ performance, which he could not deny to have
been prevalent in Beethoven's Vienna, was simply a consequence of circumstances; that, if Beethoven could have had
his own orchestra for unlimited rehearsal, he would certainly have wanted the symphonies performed in a more
flexible manner. 769 Schindler's specific suggestions, purportedly coming from Beethoven himself, are interesting
because they prefigure the kind of treatment that Wagner and his disciples were later to give to the symphonies, in the
belief that this was what the composer had really wanted. In the ‘Eroica’, for instance, Schindler claimed that the
passage beginning at bar 83 of the first movement should be played somewhat more slowly until the following pp (Ex.
11.5,) where ‘by means of a gently held accelerando it hurries into the original tempo of the movement, which is finally
attained with the phrase in B flat major f ’. 770 Most notably, he attributed to Beethoven the expression ‘thus fate knocks
at the door’ as an explanation of the opening gesture of the Fifth Symphony, and claimed that at each of its
appearances it should be much slower than the rest: ‘? = 126, approximately an Andante con moto’. 771 His most
elaborate example of tempo modification in the symphonies, however, is the Larghetto of the Second Symphony; this
gives a clear idea of the extent to which Schindler believed such flexibility of tempo was apposite (Ex. 11.6.)
Ex. 11.5. Beethoven, ‘Eroica’ Symphony op. 55/i, in Schindler, Biographie von Ludwig van Beethoven, 239
768 Biographie von Ludwig van Beethoven, 235.
769
Ibid. 242–3.
770
Ibid. 239.
771
Ibid. 241.