69 is half of 138, close to Gould's 80. and even that sounds too fast. This piece has big chords and a breathing melody. People don't play music, they play pianos and scores.

It's nice to hear all the notes.

The first time I ever heard or even heard "OF" Glen Gould was in a documentary about Voyageur 1. His playing style with that incredible clarity stuck in my head INSTANTLY and has never left.

It's not called Coitus Interruptus, no need to run away.

No, he says nothing of the kind. In fact, quite the opposite @ 7:58: "every performer on this list - except Gould, perhaps - will confirm that his or her recording is as close as possible to Beethoven's intent" and at 10:50 too.

​@@stewiegreen That's even worse. He's suggesting that Gould accidentality played the right tempo by disregarding the metronome. Ergo, he is saying "I am smarter than Gould". Sure you are, buddy.

You miss the point of the video, and Glenn Gould was just a door opener (clickbait if you want). Even with his modified Steinway, Glenn Gould played many pieces differently than the mainstream as what could he bring to the table, some too fast (a minor Invention by Bach), some faster than accepted practice, the Contrapuntus from Art of Fugue played live in Moscow 1957 for a variety of pieces. Was Gould a loose canon or a eccentric pianist? No he played not because he like the tempo, but rather from the point of view he had nothing to prove (technique wise) but what he felt as an artist with umpteen recordings of old warhorse compositions, that would shed new light on facets overlooked by playing what the audience and conservatories expected. Some of the most profound writings and lectures on J S Bach’s Fugues and one Cantata were in Gould’s TV broadcasts which shed light on overlooked or unmentioned aspects to these works. Gould in his programs and recordings played outside of the concert staples, Sweelink, Renaissance English Virginal pieces, recorded all of the Liszt’s transcriptions Beethoven Symphonies for solo piano, he premiered a previously unknown Piano work by Richard Wagner. Gould played The Art of Fugue on the Organ, how many other virtuoso pianists would leave their comfort zone. You diminish Gould as an artist with your flippant comment. Of course that wasn’t your intention, it was just your summary dismissal of wholebeat theory.

@@Renshen1957 that's exactly what I was thinking. He likes it that way, while showing new angles of the work. Just saying that there is no final tempo for nothing. Btw i am a big g fan of celibidache, so let's just let everyone to play as they like it.

​@@NARCISALISPAHIC Art is a personal expression, and both Dance and Music is a living art which has to be recreated a new (versus re-painting a portrait every time or carving a statue from stone). In that context, there is no final tempo. That being said, more than a few music conservatories, college or university, and artists claim, Ex cathedra (as though Divinely Inpired without the possiblity or error) that Metronomes were always counted as single beat, ergo these tempi in single beat interpretation are the only way Beethoven, Cesar Franck, Chopin, Czerny (Etudes and J S Bach edition), et al, for examples were intended, contradicts the "no final tempo for everything (or nothing). At various times, PianoPat, BachScholar, et al, make counter claims that single, but unlike Wim Winters do not give examples (performances at the MM in single beat), or in their performance videos played in Single Beat. Pianopat and BachScholar have moved on, others have not. Pontications by Ivory Towers of music (for a collective term) and concert pianists, conductors, etc, seem to forget that music has an academic discipline as well as an art form encompasses music history as well as musicology (if you will, a detective agency). Musicology provides insights on Performance Practice, Tempi (Tempo Ordinario 1600-into the 2nd decade of the 19th century when Beethoven declared Tempo Ordinario dead) from Treatises, Music Dictionaries (Walter's Lexicon) and even to the mid-19th Century editions of Czerny of J S Bach's complete keyboard (excluding Organ although Czerny does mention playing the Well Tempered Clavier on the organ) works. As to Czerny, he states in his prefaces that the Allegro of Bach's time is slower than at present, and lists MM marks in the Inventions for some works that are unplayable for an age appropriate (level of playing skill) that are faster than played, except for few exceptions by Gould, a minor invention, which for the most part can't played in single beat. Not that Sir Andras Schiff gives a damn about proper tempi in J S Bach, he plays the French Suites Allemandes in a modern allegro (contrary to J G Walter 1738 and 1731 editions if the Lexicon lists the allemande as the one of the slower/slowest dance in the suite) and plays all the Courantes as though they are Italian Corrente (fast virtuoso Italian pieces played presto in 3/8), when the French Courtane usually notated in Triple measure and had a slower tempo of all French court dances (3/2 or 3/4), described by Mattheson, Quantz and Rousseau as grave and majestic. However, as much as I admire Andras Schiff's tone he can draw from a Steinway Piano; his Chopin, which I heard at the home of Karl Geiringer's widow (in Santa Barbara, CA) was to die for, and he was from suffering jet lag at the time, I prefer Robert Levin playing J S Bach on the piano, he treats each voice equally (in importance and volume) in general and his scorecard isn't significantly different from Schiff as to tempi. The usual excluse is by the time wrote Bach wrote his Suites, the works had become stylized (ironic as both the English and French Suites, in that order had already been composed, before Walter compiled his dictionary). What is ignored is that J S Bach knew first hand French Music from religious refugee musicians and the German speaking nobility in the many Dukedoms, Principalities and Kingdoms were ardent Francophiles in dress, in culinary dishes, music, the French language, as one contempory writer wrote they copied French vices and French diseases... Wim Winters isn't the first, he may not be the last, to demonstrate the incongruity of MM marks that are nearly impossible and definitely unplayable for many marks. He has received a great deal of Pushback for attacking Academia's Sacred Cow (or such I type "Cop-Out") of that from Beethoven onward music became slower (ergo virtuosos less capable) when the 19th century contains many quotes as to the music being played faster (and ruined) or as Liszt said to a young Widor who asked to listen to him practice (a work of J S Bach) in essence, this is how it was played, this is how it can be played with the improvements on the piano (a bit faster), and this how everyone plays, faster as a Charlatan. Widor was my college organ teacher (in his 80's) teacher, still going strong as the Church Organist at St. Paul's Episcopal Church. I will repeat myself, Widor of his Toccata to the 5th Organ Symphony wrote (and he recorded a performance), it was piece to show of one's prowess of articulation, not speed, and nearly every Organist ignores this plays Prestissimo. It is an Allegro MM 118=1/4, but I didn't have a metronome (or had a score handy) to check the speed when he played the work from memory as to whether this was in single beat metronome or wholebeat. However, by publication in 1879, that's later by 20 years for the MM of Czerny's marks.

Glenn Gould arrived at nothing capriciously.

I think when you get used to Gould’s tempo of the first movement, it begins to make more musical sense than those recordings on the faster end. It did to me anyway. I don’t enjoy those now.

very well said- among the greatest pianists, it is frequently impossible to differentiate as the performances remain orthodox. With Gould that is not the case. He was wrong sometimes and right sometimes but when he was right, he was greater than everyone and found something in the music or the performance that in many cases augmented the masterpiece

I wonder if he would have succeeded to strike at least one single b flat. During the 253 minutes of his performance. *his happening.

Are you sure that it lasted EXACTLY four hours? Was that perhaps an estimate by an audience member who did not bring his stop-watch to the concert?

@@musicmasterplayer4532 It's what the composer Johann Friedrich Reichardt was recording as saying ("from half past six until half past pen") as he was griping the concert was far too long and far too cold. Human nature would suggest that someone complaining like that may if anything be inclined to exaggerate the duration to make his point, but the whole-beat theory would require that the duration was in fact more like eight(!) hours, which is absurd. In March 2020, just before the pandemic, there was a concert given by the Philharmonia under Esa-Pekka Salonen in London's Royal Festival Hall where they mimicked the famous 1808 Beethoven concert. Their running time was 4 hours and 15 minutes, and that (I assume) was far less chaotic than in 1808 and didn't include a restart of the Choral Fantasy. It's hard even to get down as low as 4 hours at conventional speeds, never mind if you try to do it at half speed.

@@rdbom4252 Maybe no repeats in 1808? Also, those old metronome markings on Beethoven's scores are not really playable today....there must be some midway alternative. Perhaps Beethoven did not give careful thought to those markings for metronomes. Nobody uses them.

@@musicmasterplayer4532 I don't honestly know whether repeats were played in 1808 (or in the replica concert in 2020), and I agree this could make some difference, but I don't think it would get close to a factor of two or more overall as required by whole beat theory. I agree some of Beethoven's metronome markings are out of whack - maybe not surprising since metronomes were in their infancy then - and some of his tempi feel too fast - to my ear anyway - but a wholesale slowing down by a factor of two is huge and I don't think this theory is supported as something that was done at the time.

@@rdbom4252 I am sorry to have to say this, but I feel that Beethoven's own metronome markings should not be taken too seriously as a guide to performance. Anyone who tries to do that soon gives up, the music cannot be played that fast, it becomes a jumble of sounds without shape or point. Those tempi made sense to an old Beethoven who knew the music in his mind, he was no longer concerned with preparing a performance to make the music comprehensible to an audience. Beethoven knew the music well and could run it through his mind quickly, and this is how he came up with these metronome choices. In the end each pianist has to choose his own tempi which make it possible for him/her to make their musical points. We cannot rely on old Beethoven to help us. I certainly did not, I would give Gould a listen before preparing my own performances, and then work my own way through them.

Moscheles wrote that neither quarter nor half is ideal, and suggested half=116 "I have, in my edition of this Sonata, marked the time of the first movement 138 of Maelzel's Metronome, because Beethoven himself had fixed that number. He, according to "Wegeler's Norizen," gives it with a minim-I with a crotchet; but neither of these can, to my mind, be made to suit the character of the movement. [...] although I have, in my edition, allowed Beethoven's numbers to remain, in deference to the great man, yet I would advise the player to hold a middle course, according to the following mark: half=116" Link in other comment in case that one gets hidden to not affect this, but it's in volume 2 of his book "Life of Beethoven", on page 252

@@wilh3lmmusic Thanks! So, still if Moscheles was a double beater, in Wim's interpretation we should use quarter=116, yet slower than Alberto's quarter = 138.

@@chlorinda4479 my teachers teachers teacher was Josef Lehvinne. Interdisciplinary communications are important, are you overly specialized and overly compartmentalized? Can you think « out of the box »? Or are you imprisoned by your arrogance over a degree?

Humility matters

@@chlorinda4479 several “touchés!” are due. I have obligations with a dog and her puppies right now.

@@chlorinda4479 pendula ;)

I doubt that. Beethoven could run the music through his mind during his old age at a fast clip, and that is what he gave us on those quirky metronome markings. He was no longer thinking about the audience and their perceptions.

And what is more passionate than an inflexible metronome,

kzfaq.info/get/bejne/Z9GVqZCgq6rTdok.html There you go. This source has already been discussed years ago by your favorite cherry picker. Sometimes asking questions rather than accusing people of dishonesty would spare you the situation in which you look like a total fool. Also learning to understand what you read would spare you some other embarassing situations. Can you point in the text that you quote in which sentence moscheles is saying that the “prestissimo so fearful, Beethoven could never have intended” because of its technical impossibility? Indeed, nowhere, it's just your conclusion based on assumption that needs to be proven. if you would have read the rest of the sentence (or not cherrypicked), you would have understood what moscheles is saying: “the minim increases it to a prestissimo so fearful, Beethoven could never have intended, since he desired the assai, originally prefixed to the allegro, to be omitted". What Moscheles is saying is that the tempo marking raises the speed of the piece to the point that its character becomes the one of a prestissimo instead of an allegro. And indeed he is talking about a problem of character, not technical impossibility. On the contrary, if you avoid cherrypicking and not isolate this source from the one where czerny talks about this tempo marking, things become even clearer. you would see that he confirms that this movement is playable with some "attentive practice". Single beat, as shown by the study in this video, has failed for more than a century. In whole beat it is possible with no problem. What's your solution to implement that metronome number otherwise?

Alberto, if you're going to lecture others about reading properly, maybe you shouldn't misread things so blatantly yourself. Where did I say Moscheles' comment was with respect to technical impossibility? What Wim does in this specific video is definitely cherrypicking. He asks the question "Is Beethoven's marking correct?" and then chooses to leave out the opinion of as significant a figure as Moscheles, despite the latter having given a very striking answer to the question asked by Wim. This is clearly an attempt to make it seem as though the metronome marking was not perceived as problematic back then, and it is only today the issues (not necessarily technical) arises due to our "modern" reading of the metronome. Moscheles comment was indeed with respect to the character and I think it accurately describes the feeling of modern performers. I'm fairly certain that for the majority of the pianists on the list shown in the video, the tempo choice does not represent the very upper limit of their technical ability but rather their musical interpretation of the score. Also, given that Schnabel in an admittedly messy performance reaches about 95% of the metronome marking, I would be careful about calling it "impossible". It is entirely possible that Czerny performed it at about the same tempo as Schnabel, if not a tad faster.

Also, since you seem a bit upset about me accusing Wim of dishonesty, I will happily give you another example from his videos. In the one about Gould's Appassionata, he claims that Lisitsa's recording of the first movement is the fastest one out there. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. Samuil Feinberg, Rudolf Kerer, Alexei Sultanov, Frederic Lamond, Harold Bauer and Friedrich Gulda, to name few, have all recorded the movement in less time than Lisitsa. Gulda's average of 140 dotted quarters a minute, is a tad faster than Moschels metronome mark of 138, which Wim calls "impossible" in the video (there may be a question mark about the pitch in Gulda's recording, the recording however is from 1967 and should not suffer from any noteworthy tempo alteration).

Sorry we want to see your solution to the metronome problem at the piano. You can bring your personal assumptions and interpretation of sources for the eternity but as a matter of facts, we have thousands of metronome numbers from 19th century meant as precise tempo indications to be followed and unless you are able to play up to 30 notes seconds, we humans as a musical society have only one solution to implement those metronomes in our playing. If you think that the hammerklavier is an exception, you will have in the book a small selection of 200 pieces metronomized by 50 different composers of that period that I can promise you can only play in your wet dreams. What's your solution? Please sit at the piano, take your phone, take your metronome, start with Czerny op.299 and show us.

Of course, my solution is to play one note of the indicated value for every three ticks of the metronome. This isn’t described in any historic texts about the metronome nor does it agree with timings left by numerous composers, but I’ve been told that doesn’t matter. As long as it makes everything 100% playable :)

I can support this comment

Glenn Gould was an *absolute hack* of a pianist and was only promoted by the Western media to combat the Eastern European hegemony of concert pianists. His technique is horrible by concert standards and he has zero musical sense. I usually find that people who support and promote him share a similar brand of narcissistic delusion to his own. Really a garbage pianist whose reputation is only maintained by a cult of mediocres.

I'm afraid you missed the entire point - what we do is try to understand the original meaning of the metronome marks (tempo indications) composers like Beethoven left. The current view is unattainable. What musicians do with that information, is up to them. The point with GG is that when musicians leave the desire to technically shine on stage behind, they instinctively come very close to the whole beat interpretation of these authentic tempi. And btw, one can think today that tempo choice is the individual's privelegde, but that doesn't mean Beethoven and co did feel the same about it. They didn't. That's not an opinion, that's a fact. Hope this solves your issues with our 'pedantic bluster'

made a video on that performance too

Which is exactly what Wim is saying.

La musique ce n’est pas une question de rapidité,il n’y a que pour les incultes que cela a de l’importance.

You can also listen to, or watch, him playing his own transcription of Ravel's La Valse.

sarcasm/ Nah! The ONLY reason not to play any piece as fast as possible is because you can't. If anyone can play it faster than you, your technique is lacking. That's all. No such thing as impossible or pointless speed - only pianists with weak technique. All the people in that list are inferior to Gieseking! /sarcasm

Because Wim Winters alleges that people played it at half speed at the time, which is completely false (see "historical evidence of tempi in the 18th and 19th centuries" by Fafner)

Yeah it wasn't, it kept tempo fine but it would beat in a 1,2... 1,2...1,2 rhythym

Furthermore on todays pianos, with slower action and better sound, it is worth shaving the edge off the tempo in order to produce a better sound - that might mean playing at 125-130bpm, but not 60 like these cultish freaks

Well, the first performance of the Hammerklavier took already place a few weeks after completion, by Carl Czerny. He himself played the entire piece in order to metronomize it for Ferdinand Ries. So the idea of music not meant to be played is not an option!

As far as the Hammerklavier itself is concerned: there is a recording by Beveridge Webster which is perhaps not up to the infamous and arguably incorrect 138 but certainly around Schnabel's mark minus all the mistakes. Weird it wasn't included in the study mentioned in the video... or in the video itself.

​@alwaurora8069 Frderich Gulda always played this piece at around the intended tempo, a few of his recordings were a bit rushed but in particular the one from the Beethovenfest 1970 was really well executed at the right speed

Yes

Gould did not believe in whole beat.

I don’t think authentic sound is saying he was fully aware of the whole beat metronome practice, but by disregarding the erroneous 138bpm Gould was able to get closer to the original intended speed, as it seemed more naturally correct. Disregarding it allowed Gould to see the folly of 138bpm even if he didn’t know the exact reason why or the exact correct tempo.

We begin to stray into the “morality” of the arts. How should musical expression be or to what should it transcendentally aspire for? The stereotypes of the smug classical personage of a musician is in great part because this cult of “wrong” aesthetic/character aspects, to my opinion.

No pianist is ever completely happy with the results.

I'm a Gould fanatic and I approve this comment👍

He and his friend Alberto recorded all of Beethovens sonatas. And also 2 symphonies on the piano.

What symphony 8 recording? can you please share the link

12:30 on this video@@mahdianani186

That's actually really interesting. I hadn't considered that!