Why is Beethoven's tempo so off?

Question

There is one thing that brought me this question. Well 2 actually. First off is Wim Winters and his Authentic Sound channel where he argues that Beethoven is using double beat for his tempos. He relatively recently made a series of videos of a supposedly tempo accurate performance of Beethoven's Fifth. I can tell you from listening to a snippet(I didn't even get to the development section, it was so horrid) exactly how he got that tempo. He took a recording and then manipulated it to be slower. But even if he did use notation software and got a better sound out of it, I would still take issue to the slowness.

The second thing that brought me this question, also from Beethoven's fifth, is this tempo marking:

Straight interpretation

If I were to interpret this straight as half note = 108 BPM. I would then get quarter note = 216 BPM. If I were to interpret the tempo this way, it would be way too fast, even compared to the fastest performances of the piece(which for reference, are around 160-170 BPM). 216 BPM is Prestissimo these days and was probably Presto agitato in Beethoven's time. In the case of Mozart, I can understand why his Allegro molto is so variable, from 140 BPM to 210 BPM. But didn't tempo start getting standardized in Beethoven's time? Wasn't it clear at that time that 210 BPM is not any sort of Allegro? In that case, why would Beethoven write such an outrageous tempo marking for his fifth symphony?

Double beat interpretation

Now we come to Wim Winter's interpretation. According to him, the whole symphony is supposed to be interpreted as though it was in 4/4 time. Given that 2/4 and 4/4 are very similar in terms of accent, this isn't out of the question. What is out of the question, is once again, the resulting tempo. At a tempo of quarter note = 108, sure you could say it is Allegretto or maybe even Allegro. But that is too slow for Allegro con brio. Con brio translates to with energy and in the case of tempo, implies that the tempo is faster than averages for the marking.

So in other words, Allegro con brio implies a fast Allegro. The slowest performances of Beethoven's Fifth tend to hover around 132 BPM, certainly faster than the average of 120-125 BPM for Allegro. 108 BPM is nowhere near Allegro con brio. This alone makes me seriously question the double beat interpretation of Beethoven's tempo.

It can't just be that Beethoven's metronome was broken. If that was the case, I would expect to see something more along the lines of Adagio half note = 120 and I don't. But neither the straight interpretation or the double beat interpretation is right either. So why is Beethoven's tempo so off from ours?

Answer 1

The topic of Beethoven's tempi is a controversial one that has prompted a huge body of discussion. Here though are some factoids:

• Beethoven clearly cared deeply about tempo and seems to have intended his markings literally rather than contextually. See quotes like "...first performance of the Ninth Symphony was received with enthusiastic applause, which I attribute largely to the metronome markings" and “his first question invariably was: ‘How were the tempi?’”.
• The obvious conclusion then is that Beethoven was fettered in some way and his markings are not what he intended; however many of these theories fit poorly with fact. For instance, the idea that his metronome was broken fits poorly given that his tempi are sometimes faster and sometimes slower than the 'reasonable' speed. Likewise, his deafness would not prevent him from seeing the arm of the metronome and measuring time that way.
• So maybe it's all just subjective and Beethoven's markings are as legitimate as conventional interpretations? Perhaps, though worth noting that some faster sections come up against issues of playability. An interesting idea in this regard is that instrument design and musical style of Beethoven's time made pieces easier to play faster (lack of vibrato, gut strings, see Beethoven Project). Though writing too-difficult parts also wouldn't be out of character for him; he admitted being a terrible violinist and not a perfect orchestrator either. It fits his personality to write what he heard in his head regardless of physical possibility.
• re: "But didn't tempo start getting standardized in Beethoven's time?" yes, with the operative word being 'start'. Maelzel's metronome became available in 1816, 8 years after the fifth symphony was published; Beethoven added the metronome marks to his first 8 symphonies after the fact, so those works had been performed for years without those guidelines; people may have already become accustomed to the those tempi rather then Beethoven's. Even once the markings were in place, Beethoven was an early adopter of the metronome, and most conductor's would be unused to the idea of adherence to an exact tempo, further increasing likelihood they were ignored, and a different tempo entered public consciousness. Finally, taste has changed in 200 years
• The double beat idea is interesting, I don't recall encountering it before. Forsen et al. mention that Beethoven had poor eyesight and may have misread the metronome, which required more interpretation than modern devices.

So clearly there's a lot going on. I couldn't say what it was that actually happened, but seeing the number of variables it's perhaps unsurprising that the markings do seem odd to us.

The Beethoven Project

Zander