Tempo

(It.: ‘time’; Fr. mouvement; Ger. Zeitmass).

Literally, the ‘time’ of a musical composition, but more
commonly used to describe musical speed or pacing.
Tempo may be indicated in a variety of ways. Most familiar
are metronomic designations that link a particular
durational unit (usually the beat unit of the notated metre)
with a particular duration in clock time (e.g. crotchet = 80
beats/minute). Also familiar are conventionalized
descriptions of speed and gestural character
– andante, allegro, langsam etc; (see Tempo and
expression marks). There are also looser associations
between metric notations and tempo, a vestige of earlier
mensural practice, where, for example, 3/2 is sign of
relatively slow tempo, 3/4 of moderate tempo and 3/8 of
relatively quick tempo. Similarly, we retain a sense of the
distinction between the half-circle (common time) and the
crossed half-circle (alla breve), with the latter theoretically
twice as fast (see Alla breve, Notation, §III, 3–6,
and Proportional notation).
While tempo necessarily involves a determination of the
appropriate durations for the various rhythmic units given
in score, there is more to tempo than simply indexing
crotchets and quavers to some amount of clock time.
Epstein observed that ‘tempo is a consequence of the sum
of all factors within a piece – the overall sense of a work’s
themes, rhythms, articulations, “breathing”, motion,
harmonic progressions, tonal movement, contrapuntal
activity. … Tempo … is a reduction of this complex Gestalt
into the element of speed per se, a speed that allows the
overall, integrated bundle of musical elements to flow with
a rightful sense’ (Shaping Time: Music, the Brain, and
Performance, New York, 1995, p.99). A true sense of
tempo, then, is a product of more than the successive
note-to-note articulations; it involves the perception of
motion within rhythmic groups and across entire phrases.
Finding the ‘right’ tempo within and between sections of a
piece is one of the subtlest and most difficult tasks facing
the performer.
Changes in surface durations do not necessarily give rise
to a change of tempo, as the augmentation or diminution
of durational values may have little effect on the rate of the
perceived pulse. Bona fide tempo changes may of course
occur, either abruptly or gradually
(via accelerando or ritardando) over the course of a
composition, often rather dramatically. But it is worth
noting that even within passages that seem to be in stable
tempo, the beat rate is not mechanically constant, save in
performances that involve electronic or mechanical means
of articulating beats and rhythms. Rather, in normal
performances tempo systematically fluctuates within the
bar and the phrase.
Tempo is intertwined with our sense of pulse and metre,
for without a regular series of pulses it is difficult to
imagine any sense of tempo whatsoever. In a metric
context, our sense of tempo is what allows us to
distinguish subdivisions from beats and beats from
downbeats (see Rhythm, §1, 4). The entire metric
hierarchy, from the shortest subdivisions to the broadest
levels of hypermetre, plays a pivotal role in establishing
the ‘complex Gestalt’ of tempo.

See also Notation and Tempo and expression marks; for

bibliography, see Rhythm.

JUSTIN LONDON

Tempo and expression marks.

Words and other instructions in musical scores used to
define the speed and specify the manner of performance.
1. Introduction.
2. Taxonomy and taxonomies.
3. The language.
4. Considerations in establishing the tempo.
5. Early history of performance instructions.
DAVID FALLOWS
Tempo and expression marks
1. Introduction.
Tempo and expression marks may be the most
consistently ignored components of a musical score.
Musicians who know the key, pitch, phrasing and perhaps
even the first page or so of the precise scoring of
the Figaro overture, for instance, are rarely able to name
the tempo and opening dynamic of this most popular of all
scores. (In fact Mozart himself got it wrong in
his Verzeichnüss, putting Allegro assai for Presto.) That is
partly because only the notes are objective facts, but also
because musicians tend to look first at the music, only
later checking the markings to see whether they agree
with initial impressions; the markings without the music
say very little. By a bizarre paradox, concert programmes
and radio announcements often give the tempo mark as
the only information about a particular movement; but that
odd convention is really just a means of orientation,
guiding the listener as to which sections are faster than
others. For the present purposes it should perhaps be
taken as axiomatic that staff notation is relatively precise
for what it is equipped to express whereas verbal or
implicitly verbal instructions are employed for the
dimensions that cannot be expressed in such simple and
unambiguous form. To distinguish between correct and
incorrect performance of pitches and rhythms is a
relatively simple matter whereas tempo and expression
are far more subjective.
The responsibility lies less with physical qualities –
musical volume and time can be analysed and defined
with complete scientific objectivity – than with the nature of
Western music and its instruments. Dynamics are
contextual, not only within the musical gradation of a
phrase and within the voicing of a chord (let alone the size
of the room and of the ensemble) but also within the
instrument itself: the difference between the loudest and
softest tones on a trombone or a violin is far greater than
on an oboe or a flute and suggests that some of the
attempts in the 1950s to serialize dynamics may have
been a little out of touch with reality. And while the
metronome has been available for nearly two centuries,
there has been considerable resistance to its use, both
among composers who have found that their metronome
marks simply could not be made to work in all conditions
and among performers who look with suspicion on
anything that seems to reduce them to the level of an
automaton. Part of the reason in both cases, as Rudolf
Kolisch pointed out (C1943), is that in expressive playing
there are rarely any two consecutive bars or even any two
consecutive beats at precisely the same tempo, so
metronome numbers are often hard to give and even
harder to follow.
There is a further problem with tempo. Evidence suggests
that increasing familiarity with a work leads audiences and
musicians to prefer slower performances: the surviving
early and apparently authoritative metronome marks, such
as those by Beethoven for his own works (see Kolisch,
C1992, and Stadlen, C1967, C1982) and those by
Hummel for Mozart (see Münster, C1962–3), tend to be
substantially faster than the fastest times taken in the 20th
century before the days of a programmatic return to
‘authentic’ tempos. Moreover the composer’s attitude can
change: the three recordings Boulez has made of his
own Le marteau sans maître over a mere 15 years show a
remarkable slowing down.
This same imprecision and variability of meaning has led
to a relative lack of formal research. Metronome marks
have been studied extensively, and with the increasing
availability of recordings of the same work by different
artists at widely divergent tempos this study will continue;
but its bearing on the question of tempo marks is almost
exhausted with the simple observation that it is impossible
to provide as much as an approximate metronome
equivalent for any tempo mark even within the works of a
single composer, for many other considerations must be
taken into account (see §4 below). As a historical study,
tempo and expression marks present a front so slippery
that few have ventured to tackle this area in which
conclusions are so subjective, facts so difficult to establish
or check, and the available data in many cases not at all
carefully considered by the composers when they wrote
them. Consequently the fullest studies of individual tempo
and expression marks are still those in the dictionaries of
the 18th and early 19th centuries: here there was an
attempt to show how different composers had used a mark
with different intentions and in different contexts at
different points in their lives. So the rigorous study of the
subject today would (like Siegele, D1974) begin from there.
The study of the introduction and early use of tempo
marks in the 17th century has been outlined with
remarkable thoroughness and perspicacity by
Herrmann-Bengen (D1959); but few attempts have been
made to establish the traditions in which particular marks
were used. Thus it has been shown that Beethoven
normally used the word Assai to mean not ‘very’ but
‘rather’, and it has also been shown that Brossard (A1703),
whom Beethoven is not likely to have read, gave that
meaning for the word; but nobody has attempted to show
a tradition of allegro assai running through the 18th
century used in that way. Many similar examples could be
given.
Study of the subject is made particularly difficult by the
eagerness with which many 19th-century editors added
tempo and expression marks to scores. Even today the
nature of traditional music typography is such that it can
be hard for even the most conscientious editor to indicate
clearly which directions are original and which editorial;
indeed, a consistent practice in this was really established
only in the critical complete editions that have appeared
since the 1950s (Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, etc.). But even
here there are intractable problems: marks added to early
performing scores (printed or professionally copied) often
stand a good chance of carrying the composer’s authority.
Anyone who has compared a few internationally
orientated performing editions of the Schubert songs or
Wagner’s later operas will see how the original German
directions were not merely translated but rejected and
replaced with often thoroughly inappropriate
pseudo-Italian markings inserted by anonymous editors.
This is just the most conspicuous tip of the iceberg which
makes the whole study of tempo and expression marks
extremely hazardous.
In a sense, these editions are a function of a development
most clearly visible in music since about 1800. In 1826
Beethoven wrote to Schott: ‘We can hardly have any tempi
ordinari any more, now that we must follow our free
inspiration’: the Romantic search for individuality had
made the obvious tempo something to be despised. In
1817 he had written to Hofrat von Mosel saying that he
wished to discard the ‘four principal tempos’
(allegro, andante, adagio and presto) and to use a
metronome for tempo, but added: ‘the words that indicate
the character of a piece are another thing … these terms
refer actually to its spirit, which is what I am interested in’.
The individuality that he represented and that was to
become the hallmark of 19th-century music led to an
extraordinary proliferation of tempo and expression marks,
a significant increase in a development which had been
going on since the middle of the 17th century. Such words
are rare in earlier music and entirely absent from all other
music traditions in the world: in those a knowledge of the
tradition was normally sufficient to establish the correct
tempo and playing style. But of course the same is true for
a fairly large proportion of 19th-century music in which,
therefore, the tempo and expression marks are often
largely superfluous – which perhaps explains why they are
so often ignored.
Tempo and expression marks
2. Taxonomy and taxonomies.
Although verbal instructions have several quite separate
functions in scores it is hard to establish a watertight
division of these functions. Spiccato is not merely an
instruction to use a particular bowing technique but also a
request for a particular kind of sound. Vivace in
19th-century scores can be a tempo designation, a
modification of another tempo designation or an indication
of mood alone. But a relatively simple and workable
taxonomy is implied by the layout and typography of most
published performing scores circulating today. It is offered
here as being the current practice whose very familiarity
and relative consistency solve many of the inevitable
problems of rationalization.
(a) The tempo designation and similar instructions
concerning the entire ensemble appear at the top in bold
roman type.
(b) Dynamics are notated below each staff, separately for
each performer or voice, in bold italic. Normally only the
traditional letter-abbreviations are used: p, mp, ff, etc.,
together with sfz and similar accent
marks. Crescendo and diminuendo cannot be expressed
in this abbreviated form and are therefore taken in under
category (c).
(c) Marks of expression are printed in normal
italic: espressivo, zart, markig, con voce cupa, etc. In this
category also belong qualifications to the dynamic (cresc.),
or even sometimes to the tempo
(slentando, stringendo, accelerando) – presumably
because small adjustments to the tempo are constantly to
be expected in music of the later 19th century.
(d) Technical instructions are printed in small roman: arco,
senza sord., Schalltrichter auf!, getheilt, am Steg,
baguettes de bois, etc.
There are obvious dangers in the conceptual use of such
an analysis. Beethoven’s letter to Hofrat von Mosel (cited
above), shows that he saw clear and essential divisions
within the first group; several of the terms appear in
different categories in modern printed scores according to
context or the whim of the editor; and the implicit
application of the modern system to 18th-century scores in
20th-century editions has led to substantial misinformation.
More important, terms have changed their functions over
the years (see Andante) or even between one composer
and the next (see Dolce (i)). The early history of the whole
topic is particularly fraught: there are suggestions that, in
the 17th century, a piano section should often also be slow,
and that in several cases, Adagio is not a tempo but a
style of playing (e.g. in Frescobaldi), and so on.
A further division is more important. Some marks have
traditions associated with them and others do not. On the
whole the dividing-line here is between Italian and
non-Italian, or perhaps between words used internationally
(like martelé or Flatterzunge) and those whose use is
confined to the vernacular. Adagio, for instance, has a
history of its own, much more than langsam or slow; not
that the vernacular forms never caught on (they did, often)
but merely because their selfconsciously vernacular
position tended to prevent their developing the kind of
purely musical tradition that adagio acquired all over
Europe. There is a long and respectable tradition of
composers using their own vernacular in verbal directions,
but the history to be drawn there would be of the fact of
using the vernacular, not of the shades of musical
meaning within the words themselves.
This raises a related matter: the distinction between
traditional use and vernacular use of Italian by composers
who happened to be fluent in Italian. At the beginning
of La bohème, Puccini marked all the
parts ruvidamente (‘roughly’, ‘harshly’), but its meaning
here is simply its literal meaning, and it is most unlikely
that Puccini would have had any earlier musical uses of
the word in mind as he wrote it, even less that in doing so
he was specifically recalling them. Nor should all the
verbose markings of Vivaldi be so carefully categorized:
he made free use of all kinds of fascinating instructions,
but there is no reason to list them all or to think that their
meanings went any further than the literal. The reader of
such scores would be better equipped with a pocket Italian
dictionary than a dictionary of musical terms.
Tempo and expression marks
3. The language.
Italian music – and indeed Italian culture in general – so
strongly dominated the European scene during the years
1600 to 1750, the years in which tempo and expression
marks were not only introduced but developed into a
system, that the international vocabulary for these words
inevitably became Italian. There is no evidence of any
particular power struggle: German and English words
appear occasionally in 17th-century music, and both
Praetorius and Purcell implied a little frustration with the
idea of such instructions being more acceptable when put
in Italian, but they accepted the growing convention and
nothing systematic developed in either language. In the
early 18th century, a system of French words evolved with
almost as much range and coherence as the
German-language system of the later 19th and early 20th
centuries, but the influence of French music was not
sufficient to present any significant challenge to the
supremacy of Italian, the language known to most
musicians. By the time the later German system evolved,
the Italian system had 200 years’ advantage. So although
most composers of the 19th and 20th centuries have at
some point in their career preferred to use their own
language for tempo and expression marks, whether for
reasons of precision, more direct communication with their
anticipated readers or mere impatience with the
assumption that Italian should dominate musical scores,
many have subsequently regretted and reversed this
decision both because the Italian terms are the only ones
adequately understood by musicians all over the world
and because usage and tradition have given the Italian
markings depths of meaning and accrued implication far
beyond their dictionary definitions.
Musicians’ Italian is a kind of lingua franca, several of
whose central components have musical meanings only
loosely related to their literal meanings
(adagio, andante, allegro), many of whose commoner
words do not appear in current spoken Italian
(adagietto, andantino), and whose larger vocabulary is
mostly current Italian but includes some weird byways,
both in terms of improbable instructions (andante ed
innocentemente, Haydn; allegro cristiano, Rossini, etc.)
and pseudo-Italian constructs (glissando, leggieramente).
In a curious way this language has acquired at least a
patina of precision, although the wide divergence of
tempos on recordings hints at a much deeper problem
which Beethoven had evidently taken to heart when he
added longer and longer tempo designations to his works,
such as the Andante con moto assai vivace quasi
Allegretto ma non troppo with which he opened his C
major Mass op.86.
A casual approach is also noticeable. The expanding
range of instructions in the 19th century coupled with the
receding general importance of Italian to the educated
musician resulted in some extraordinary manifestations,
especially among marks added by arrangers and
editors. Poco adagio (literally ‘rather
uncomfortable’; see Poco) and poco allegro (‘unhappy’)
acquired a currency sufficient to cause considerable alarm
to Eric Blom, for instance, many of whose articles on
tempo marks in Grove5 are entirely linguistic in content
and framed with a view to correcting some of the more
startling errors. The full study of the subject in the future
will need to take account of these eccentric usages and
concentrate on what they mean rather than whether they
are correct: grammatical and illiterate alike, they belong to
‘musicians’ Italian’.
There are of course distinctive and important uses of
languages other than Italian. ‘Long’, ‘slow’ and ‘away’
appear in English sources (the earliest
being GB-Och 732–5, early 17th century), as do ‘brisk’
and ‘drag’ in the later years of the 17th century; and it is a
measure of the influence of the Italian trio sonata that
Purcell used Italian tempo marks for his Sonnata’s of 1683.
J.S. Bach’s use of French in certain works has reasonably
been construed as directing that a French performing style
should be used. Liszt, Kodály and Bartók used the
Hungarian lassan (slowly) and friss (fast) for music in the
folk style, drawing attention, as tempo and expression
marks generally do, to particular traditions within which the
pieces belong.
Long and elaborate instructions have more recently been
confined to prefaces which in some cases occupy more
pages than the music; but they can still occasionally be
found taking up rather more space than seems justifiable
within the score itself. Schoenberg’s instruction at bar 12
of his Prelude op.49 reads: ‘Immer ohne Vibrato und
Portamento nach Hollywood-Art; auch grosse Intervalle
dürfen nicht durch Gleiten verbunden werden sondern,
wenn nötig, durch Ausgreifen. Dieses Gleiten ist
abscheulich sentimental’, which is really less a
performance instruction than a declaration of musical
beliefs. Poulenc’s instruction in the orchestral version
(1962) of L’histoire de Babar, ‘excessivement prétentieux
alla Callas’, combines the charms of topicality, entirely
clear macaronic usage and superfluous irrelevance.
Tempo and expression marks
4. Considerations in establishing the tempo.
Before the advent of the metronome – a device whose
very precision is often considered artistically
counter-productive – there were several ways of indicating
tempo without recourse to the Italian terms (see
also Tempo). They are enumerated here not only because
they explain the late and slow development of the Italian
terms within the history of Western music, but also
because most of them remain valid for more recent
scores.
(i) Time signatures or mensuration signs.
From the mid-15th century on, C was theoretically twice as
fast as C: the stroke denoted diminution by half. But there
is considerable evidence that in practice it was rarely
taken so literally but merely implied a somewhat faster
tempo, or perhaps nothing at all (Bent, D1996). Binchois,
for instance, would direct that a Kyrie movement (c1430)
in mensuration should be repeated in , but it seems
musically unlikely that the addition of a stroke here
indicated a doubling of speed. If any sign was consistently
used for a doubling of speed it was C2 or 2. Studies of the
mensural practices of Du Fay (C. Hamm: A Chronology of
the Works of Guillaume Dufay, 1964) and Isaac (P.
Gossett: ‘The Mensural System and the Choralis
Constantinus’, Studies in Renaissance and Baroque
Music in Honor of Arthur Mendel, 1974) seem to indicate
that proportional relationships were not necessarily
precise but that certain mensuration signs did indeed
imply the use of a faster or a slower tempo. Michael
Praetorius stated in 1612 (Terpsichore) that he had used
mensuration signs to denote tempo; later he used the
Italian words which ‘bei den Italis im vollen Gebrauch
seyn’ (Polyhymnia caduceatrix, 1619), but finally
(Puericinium, 1621) settled on an equivalence table:
 C id est lento: tardè: langsam
C id est presto: velociter: geschwindt
In 1752 Quantz still included the time signatures as a
major consideration when defining the tempo implied by
the various tempo marks. Zaslaw (D1972) pointed out that
when Mozart wrote to his father in 1783 describing
Clementi as a charlatan for playing too slowly he had to
quote both tempo mark and time signature to make his
point clear: one without the other would have been
insufficient.
(ii) Note values.
Nicola Vicentino (L’antica musica, A1555, f.42) gave a
characterization of the different note values, associating
each with a tempo and making a special issue of the point
that he was not discussing merely the relative lengths of
the notes (which had been described earlier) but rather
showing how different note values could be used to
produce pieces of different speeds. The maxima was used
for ‘moto tardissimo’, the longa for ‘tardo’, the brevis for
‘moto naturale che non sarà ne presto ne tardo’,
the semibrevis for ‘moto mediocre’, the minima for ‘più che
mediocre’, the semiminima for ‘moto presto’, the croma for
‘veloce’ and the semicroma for ‘moto velocissimo’. In 1725
Fux (Gradus ad Parnassum) implied the same when he
presented a single passage in two different note values
labelling one presto and the other adagio. But after the
earlier years of the 17th century the relationship between
note value and tempo became complex, as it still is: its
study belongs more in the realm of musical perception
than in that of tempo marks. Suffice it to say here that note
values obviously affect the musician’s choice of tempo and
that they do so most clearly when they bring to mind other
pieces, particularly within a single tradition (such as
certain kinds of 12/8 implying a gigue, and 3/2 sometimes
implying a sarabande or a chaconne; see §(v) below).
Logically this suggests that the reduction of note values in
any modern edition is likely to obscure vital information.
(iii) Physical considerations.
The shortest note value or the longest is obviously a
relevant factor, whether in relation to the player’s
capabilities or the instrument’s characteristics. Many
Baroque treatises (and indeed more recent ones) instruct
the performer to take note of these factors in selecting a
tempo. But this consideration is a timeless commonplace
and should perhaps not be given the importance attached
to it by some writers.
(iv) ‘Tempo giusto’.
The concept of a normal or correct speed for music is
surely the main reason why the Italian tempo marks
arrived so late in history. As a concept it appears, defined
or implied, throughout the early literature on
the Tactus (see also Conducting, §1). To some extent the
concepts of normal and correct tempo are separate. The
normal is the main issue of tactus, whether it is defined in
terms of the heartbeat (from Ramis de Pareia, Musica
practica, 1482, through to Quantz, Versuch, A1752), of
walking (Buchner, Fundamentum, c1520), of breathing
(Gaffurius, Practica musicae, 1496), of vegetable
chopping (Hermann Finck, Practica musica, 1556), or
whatever else. But the term Tempo giusto was used by
Frescobaldi and many later writers down to Leopold
Mozart, who included its understanding as one of the
fundamental requirements for a complete musician: ‘and it
is this’, he wrote, ‘by which the true worth of a musician
can be recognized without fail’. It should be borne in mind
that he wrote this at a time when most music was provided
with tempo marks: without an understanding of tempo
giusto, he seems to have been saying, you will never
understand the instructions written on the score. (See
also Tempo ordinario.)
(v) Traditions.
Obviously the identification of a piece as a gavotte or as a
minuet directly affects the choice of tempo even if the
information provided by such identification is neither
precise nor accurate. Many Elizabethan galliards are of a
complexity that makes the full dancing tempo unlikely, but
even so the mood and spring of a galliard can be retained
at the slower tempo and remain relevant to the
performance of the piece. At the other end of the scale,
the symphonic minuet of the late 18th century departed
from the court minuet; and even if the stateliness of the
model was lost there was a rich tradition of fast minuet
movements which would directly influence the choice of
tempo even after composers had begun to give such
movements the more rational title of ‘scherzo’. Indeed to
this day the reference to a particular musical tradition is
often far more useful and precise than the use of one of
the standard terms.
(vi) Text content.
Vicentino (A1555, f.94v) stated that compositions should
be performed ‘with their forte, presto and tarde in
accordance with the words’; Dahlhaus (D1959) pointed to
several examples of singers in the later 16th century being
instructed to allow the meaning of the text to guide the ebb
and flow of their performances; and the instructions given
by Giulio Caccini (Le nuove musiche, A1601/2) may be
construed in the same light. In general tempo marks were
avoided in stile antico sacred music down to the end of the
17th century, partly of course because here there was a
stronger tradition and the tempo giusto was more easily
established, but also because the meaning of the words
left less danger that the music might be misunderstood by
the performer.
All these considerations continue to operate to some
extent even when there is a tempo indication of some kind;
and the addition of a metronome mark does not instantly
wipe away all the accumulated tradition of European
music and its codes. Musicians will continue to regard
metronome marks with caution; and it is remarkable how
rarely they will actually use a metronome to verify a tempo
unless they are trying to demonstrate its correctness to
somebody else. For the film composer, to whom
split-second timing is important, the metronome is
indispensable; but for much of the musical profession it is
a mixed blessing. Berlioz told the following story (Memoirs,
trans. D. Cairns, 1969):
One day, when I spoke of the metronome and
its usefulness, Mendelssohn said sharply,
‘What on earth is the point of a metronome?
It’s a futile device. Any musician who cannot
 guess the tempo of a piece just by looking at it
is a duffer’. I could have replied that in that
case there were a good many duffers, but I
held my peace … One day he asked to see
the score of the King Lear overture, which I
had just composed in Nice. He read it through
slowly and carefully, and was about to begin
playing it on the piano (which he did, with
incomparable skill) when he stopped and said,
‘Give me the right tempo’.
But a surprisingly large proportion of the scholarly
literature concerning tempo marks centres on metronome
marks: absolute figures are rather less difficult to discuss
than the vaguer (but infinitely more rich in meaning) Italian
terms. Such discussions give rise to certain questions and
doubts which may be expressed as follows.
(a) Did Beethoven’s (or Schumann’s) metronome work
correctly? It now seems arrogant to assume that
practically all early metronomes were deficient: the story of
Schumann’s incorrect metronome has, thankfully, been
discarded (see Kämper, C1964); musicians of the
experience of Kolisch (C1943) have declared Beethoven’s
metronome marks playable; and the timings of such
figures as Hummel, George Smart and Crotch have been
subjected to the most careful analysis. Very few practising
musicians have been inclined to adopt those tempos
before the 1990s, but it is generally agreed that most of
them were probably considered acceptable at the time.
(b) Did Beethoven (or whoever) know how to use a
metronome accurately? Did he ever try playing or
conducting those tempos with the metronome ticking at
the same time? The very regularity of the metronome is so
anti-musical that it is difficult to feel a piece of music
sensitively or effectively while the machine is going; and
there is much to be said for believing that many
composers, even today, prefer to sit at their desk
conducting a piece and then estimate the metronome
mark from their own beat rather than from the metronome
itself. This may explain some of Schoenberg’s absurdly
fast metronome marks; and Bartók changed many of his
markings when he had acquired a simple tape-pendulum.
Only the advent of the synchronized film score has forced
on composers a chronological accuracy which their
forerunners did not find necessary.
(c) Did composers who used metronome marks for some
of their works and then either withdrew them or changed
them do so because of a considered decision that it was
counter-productive? Tempo was not the only feature about
which composers have allowed themselves second
thoughts. Reorchestration, the cutting of a whole section,
changes of harmony, and re-sequencing of events are
among the revisions often made by the most professional
of composers during rehearsals, after the first
performance and in some cases even 20 or 30 years later.
So it is perhaps in relation to Wagner’s constant tampering
with the Tannhäuser score until the very end of his life that
one should interpret the following passage from his Über
das Dirigieren (1869):
To speak from my very own experience, I
should say that I filled my earlier publicly
performed operas with really verbose tempo
indications and fixed them precisely and
infallibly (I thought) by adding metronome
numbers. Consequently when I heard a stupid
tempo in a performance, of
my Tannhäuser for example, a conductor
would protect himself against my
recriminations by saying that he had followed
my metronome indications most
conscientiously. I understood from this how
unsure mathematics must be in relation to
music and thereafter not only omitted
metronome numbers but also contented
myself with giving the main tempos in very
general indications, taking care only with
modifications of this tempo.
That may have been a mistake, if one is to judge from the
Bayreuth timings kept for all performances since 1882. But
Wagner should not have been particularly surprised to
learn that his works are now performed at quite different
tempos, for he himself had observed in the preface to the
first volume of Bayreuther Blätter (1878):
Why, only 18 years after Weber’s death, and
at the very place where for many years he
himself had led their performance, I found the
tempos in his operas so falsified that nothing
but the faithful memory of the master’s widow,
then still living, could assist my feelings about
it.
Yet the fear of killing his work with numbers kept Wagner
from adding any precise indications. Brahms felt similarly,
and there is some discussion of the point in his
correspondence with Clara Schumann while they were
preparing the complete works of Robert Schumann for the
press. In February 1878 Brahms wrote:
To give metronome marks immediately for
dozens of works, as you wish, seems to me
not possible. In any case you must allow the
work to lie for at least a year, and examine it
periodically. You will then write in new
numbers each time and finally have the best
solution. Consider well also that nobody can
have the choral and orchestral works played
for this purpose – and on the piano, because
of its lighter tone, everything happens faster,
much livelier and lighter in tempo. I advise you
to steer clear of this, because intelligent
people will hardly respect or make use of your
conscientious work.
But Clara Schumann’s metronome numbers are helpful so
long as it is remembered that they are not Robert
Schumann’s, nor necessarily more accurate than his, that
Clara was noted as a pianist who liked to show off with
extreme tempos, and that Robert had even expressed
dissatisfaction with her performances for precisely that
reason (see Kämper, C1964). Perhaps the sanest
approach to metronome marks, however, is the healthy
discontent of Schoenberg, who prefaced most of his
scores after op.23 with the instruction: ‘Die
Metronomzahlen sind nicht wörtlich, sondern bloss als
Andeutung zu nehmen’ (the metronome marks should be
taken not literally but merely as an indication) – a
comment curiously reminiscent of that offered by François
Couperin in relation to his verbal indications two centuries
earlier: ‘So having not thought up signs or characters to
communicate our particular ideas, we attempt to remedy
this by marking at the beginning of our pieces by means of
a few words, like tendrement, vivement, etc., more or less
what we would like to be heard’.
Perhaps the fairest answer to the question would be in the
observation that many composers (e.g. Chopin and Elgar)
have been described as being quite unpredictable in the
tempos they took for their own music, and in
Wasielewski’s testimony (Schumanniana, 1883) that
Mendelssohn was far more consistent in the tempos he
adopted for other people’s works than he was for his own.
Tempo and expression marks
5. Early history of performance instructions.
Verbal instructions in musical scores probably made their
earliest appearance in the form of ‘canons’, directions for
the interpretation of some obscure notational gimmick
which was incomprehensible without instructions. The
history of such devices includes the instructions on the
Reading rota (13th century), on Baude Cordier’s Tout par
compas (c1400) and the most elaborate instructions on
Lloyd’s Mass O quam suavis (c1500). But these amount to
no more than an attempt to make the performer’s role
more difficult by putting into words instructions that would
far more easily have been expressed in notes.
The earliest performance instructions designed to help the
performer took the form not of words but of letters. The
Romanus letters (litterae significativae) found particularly
in St Gallen chant manuscripts of the 11th century are
mentioned by Notker, Johannes Afflighemensis and
Aribo: c is used to
mean cito or celeriter, t for trahere, tarde or tenere, etc.
But in each case the letters are placed above individual
notes, never added to concern a whole piece: they may be
considered part of the development of a mensural notation
and no more belong in a category with tempo and
expression marks than do the ‘Guidonian letters’ denoting
pitch names.
Even though the 10th-century Commemoratio
brevis (GerbertS, i, 213), the Musica enchiriadis (ibid., 166)
and other treatises of the following years mention that
some pieces should be performed morosus (sad), cum
modesta morositate (fairly sadly), cum celeritate (with
speed), etc., no tradition of specific instructions in musical
scores began until the 16th century. The first serious
attempt seems to be that of Luis de Milán, who in his
vihuela book El maestro (Valencia, 1536) included a short
paragraph of playing instructions immediately before each
piece. He described the nature of the piece, its tonality, its
place within his pedagogical pattern and its tempo,
normally expressed in the form: ‘se ha de tañer con el
compas algo apresurado’ (it must be played with a fairly
hurried beat). Other tempo words used by Milán
include espacio (slow), apriessa (swift)
and mesurado (measured). He also gave more detailed
instructions in his preface, that for certain fantasias the
musician should ‘play all consonancias [intervals or chords]
with a slow tactus and all redobles [ornaments or
diminutions] with a rapid tactus and pause a little in
playing each coronada [high point]’ (trans. Jacobs, D1964).
But although similar hints also appear in the publications
of Hans Neusidler (1536) and Luys de Narváez (1538) the
idea took longer to catch on than might be expected.
Dahlhaus (D1959) has shown how theorists from the
middle of the 16th century urged performers to introduce
freedoms similar to those mentioned by Milán and which
today would be described as rubato; and the increasing
need for affect in the age of mannerism in the figurative
arts was perhaps the crucial stimulus for Giovanni Gabrieli
to introduce the marks piano and forte into his
instrumental pieces (1597); but even the prefaces of
Caccini (Le nuove musiche, A1601/2) and Frescobaldi
(Toccate e partite, 1615), while including much of the
same matter as Luis de Milán, were exceptional in their
precise instructions as to the manner of performance the
composers thought appropriate for their works.
Early uses of tempo and expression marks in scores are
isolated. Monteverdi used some in his 1610 vespers
publication, and in the next year Banchieri included
elaborate markings in the ‘Battaglia’ of his L’organo
suonarino. Thereafter the words were used by Praetorius
(1619), Jelić (1622), Priuli (1618), Marini (1617) and
others. Schütz used them from 1629 on, as did
Frescobaldi in his Fiori musicali of 1635, not to mention
Carlo Farina in the elaborate ‘Capriccio stravagante’ from
his Paduanen of 1627. The words very quickly became
established, so that by the end of the century Corelli, for
instance, marked everything he published though retaining
a limited vocabulary; in the next generation Vivaldi and
François Couperin made the most elaborate use of words
and texts to make the expressive content of their music
clearer. From then on, the degree of ‘tempo and
expression editing’ (W.S. Newman’s phrase) done by
composers depended very much on their own preferences,
the range of styles they used, the distance their music was
expected to travel and their faith in other musicians; but
the marks had become an integral part of every formal
score.
By and large it is true to say that in the early
years lento, tarde or adagio were introduced as
interruptions to an assumed tempo giusto and
that allegro or presto were used to denote a return to the
normal speed (see Kolneder, B1958). So also, piano (or
occasionally echo) was used for dynamic contrast
whereas forte denoted a return to normal dynamics: even
in Corelli, forte does not appear except when preceded
by piano. Two further considerations about the early use
of these terms point towards the nature of their position.
First, adagio and piano remarkably often appear together
and are followed by allegro and forte, also together; that is,
sudden slowness and quietness often went hand in hand,
so in 17th-century music the appearance of the one may
very often be taken to imply the other as well. Secondly,
the indications are found most often in instrumental music
where there is no text to hint at inherent moods and
changes: repeated references in the theorists suggest that
in vocal music, particularly in the madrigal, changes of
tempo and dynamic were entrusted to the sensitivity of the
performers.
It did not take long for the Italian words to be accepted in
the other European countries. As early as 1619 Michael
Praetorius (Polyhymnia caduceatrix) could write
that tutti, forte, piano, presto and lento or adagio were ‘bei
den Italis im vollen Gebrauch’ and introduced them into his
own north German publications. In 1653 J.A. Herbst
(Musica moderna prattica, Frankfurt)
defined largo, lento, adagio, tardo, presto and tutti with
the annotation ‘Dieweilheutiges Tages, hin und wider die
italienischen termini musici, bey den Componisten sehr
gebräuchlich sind’ (‘these days now and then the Italian
musical terms are very common among composers’). And
in 1683 Purcell included them (with definitions) in
his Sonnata’s of III Parts because, he said, they were
already international.
Historically speaking, dynamic instructions fall into two
distinct categories: contrast and gradation. Of these the
contrast was the simplest to identify and the first to be
notated. Giovanni Gabrieli’s introduction
of forte and piano (1597) was merely a way of notating an
echo effect and was just an outgrowth of the polychoral
tradition found in northern Italy throughout the 16th
century. Echo effects of this kind are written or implied in
many works of Gabrieli’s time and later: some are notated
as such (because it was easy to do so); others are not
(because it was superfluous).
More gradual changes of dynamic first appeared in
prefaces and in theoretical works from the second half of
the 16th century. Zacconi (Prattica di musica, 1592)
mentioned them with particular care, but they also appear
in the earlier treatises of Vicentino (A1555), Ganassi (1535)
and even Petrus de Canuntiis (Incipiunt regule florum
musices, Florence, 1510). While it was once thought that
Hermann Finck (1556) gave evidence of a 16th-century
preference for unchanging dynamics, Meier (B1977) has
shown that the text should be construed in precisely the
opposite way. Elaborate descriptions
of crescendo and decrescendo appear in the preface to
Caccini’s Le nuove musiche(A1601/2) and
in Fantini’s Modo per imparare a sonare di tromba (1628).
So although terraced dynamics are perhaps appropriate
on instruments such as the harpsichord or organ where
nothing else was possible, this was by no means the
general practice except in the case of echo effects. The
famous crescendo of the Mannheim orchestra in the
mid-18th century may have seemed astonishing to its
contemporaries, but there is very little in the scores that
cannot also be found in those of Vivaldi: the novelty at
Mannheim was probably rather more in unanimity of
execution and a conscious striving for effect than in any
new musical or conceptual basis. On the other hand it may
be significant, as Cahn pointed out (‘Retardatio,
ritardando’, D1974, HMT), that the late 18th century saw
the introduction of gerund forms into verbal
instruction: ritardando,calando, smorzando, all began at
that time. Whether this is symptomatic of an actual new
preference for gradual changes or of a desire to designate
and rationalize existing practice more precisely is difficult
to tell, but the words themselves seem curiously
characteristic of Empfindsamkeit.
It seems that the earliest extensive listing of tempo and
expression marks was that in Sébastien de
Brossard’s Dictionaire (A1703) containing a wide range of
internationally current Italian words which were from then
on used liberally in scores all over Europe. Brossard also
served as the prime source for the entries in many of the
other 18th-century music dictionaries until that of
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (A1768), who still used Brossard
heavily but made a serious attempt to establish a logical
conceptual basis for such a study, particularly in the article
‘Mouvement’. Longer discussions appear in the later
dictionaries, particularly those of H.C. Koch (A1802) and
Gustav Schilling (1835–42 [SchillingE]). After that tempo
and expression marks almost ceased to be a topic for
discussion (as opposed to brief definition) in dictionaries
until the Sachteil of Riemann Musiklexikon (12/1967),
which contains many thoughtful articles (mostly by Carl
Dahlhaus and drawing, as do those in this dictionary, on
the work of Herrmann-Bengen, D1959). Dictionaries of
musical terms constitute an enormous and rather different
category of literature stretching back, for these purposes,
to the anonymous A Short Explication (A1724), but their
entries are mostly little more than translations: their lists of
words rarely provide information that would not more
clearly be derived from a study of the scores; and although
their graduated lists of tempo marks are usually
provocative in some respect, these dictionaries are on the
whole remarkably uninstructive and contain very little that
could not be found in a pocket language dictionary.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Tempo and expression marks, §5: Early history of
performance instructions
BIBLIOGRAPHY
a: important source materials
PraetoriusSM, iii, 50, 78, 88, 132
SchillingE (‘Adagio’, ‘Andante’, ‘Allegro’, ‘Tempo’ etc.)
WaltherML
N. Vicentino: L’antica musica ridotta alla moderna
prattica (Rome, 1555, 2/1557); ed. in DM, 1st ser.,
Druckschriften-Faksimiles, xvii (1959)
G. Caccini: Introduction to Le nuove
musiche (Florence, 1601/2/R); ed. in RRMBE, ix
(1970)
B. Bottazzi: Choro et organo (Venice, 1614)
Composition Regeln (c1640), Werken van Jan Pieterszn.
Sweelinck, x, ed. H. Gehrmann (The Hague and
Leipzig, 1901), 56ff
T.B. Janovka: Clavis ad thesaurum magnae artis
musicae (Prague, 1701/R, 2/1715 as Clavis ad
musicam)
M. de Saint-Lambert: Principes du clavecin (Paris, 1702)
S. de Brossard: Dictionaire de musique (Paris, 1703/R,
3/c1708/R); ed. and trans. A. Gruber (Henryville, PA,
1982)
F.E. Niedt: Handleitung zur Variation (Hamburg, 1706)
F. Couperin: L’art de toucher le clavecin (Paris, 1716,
2/1717/R), 40–41; ed. and trans. M. Halford (New
York, 1974)
A Short Explication of Such Foreign Words as are Made
Use of in Musicke Books (London, 1724)
J. Grassineau: A Musical Dictionary (London, 1740/R,
rev., enlarged 2/1769 by J. Robson, rev. 3/1784 by
J.C. Heck)
J.J. Quantz: Versuch einer Anweisung die Flöte
traversiere zu spielen (Berlin, 1752/R, 3/1789/R; Eng.
trans., 1966, 2/1985, as On Playing the Flute)
C.P.E. Bach: Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier zu
spielen, i (Berlin, 1753/R, 3/1787/R); ii (1762/R,
2/1797/R); Eng. trans. (1949, 2/1951)
L. Mozart: Versuch einer gründlichen
Violinschule (Augsburg, 1756/R, 3/1787/R; Eng. trans.,
1948, as A Treatise on the Fundamental Principles of
Violin Playing), 48ff; (2/1951/R)
J.-J. Rousseau: Dictionnaire de musique (Paris, 1768/R;
Eng. trans., 1771, 2/1779/R), esp. article ‘Mouvement’
J.G. Sulzer: Allgemeine Theorie der schönen
Künste (Leipzig, 1771–4, enlarged 3/1786–7 by F. von
Blankenburg, 4/1792–9/R), esp. articles ‘Bewegung
und Vortrag’, ‘Takt und Zeiten’, ‘Taktzeichen’
J.P. Kirnberger: Die Kunst des reinen
Satzes (Berlin, 1771–6)
E.W. Wolf: Musikalischer Unterricht (Dresden, 1788)
D.G. Türk: Clavierschule (Leipzig and Halle, 1789,
enlarged 2/1802/R; Eng. trans., 1982)
W. Crotch: ‘Remarks on the Terms, at Present Used in
Music, for Regulating the Time’, Monthly Magazine,
viii (1799–1800), 941
M. Clementi: Introduction to the Art of Playing on the
Piano Forte (London, 1801/R), 13–14
C. Mason: Rules on the Times, Metres, Phrases & Accent
of Composition (London, c1801) [copy in US-NYp]
H.C. Koch: Musikalisches Lexikon (Frankfurt, 1802/R, rev.
3/1865 by A. von Dommer)
W. Crotch: Specimens of Various Styles of
Music (London, 1807–18)
Castil-Blaze: Dictionnaire de musique
moderne (Brussels, 1821, 3/1828)
J.N. Hummel: Klavierschule (Vienna, 1828)
M. and L. Escudier: Dictionnaire de musique (Paris, 1844,
5/1872)
b: dynamics
MGG1 (‘Dynamik’, §A, H.-H. Dräger; §B, W. Gerstenberg
[extensive historical study])
A. Heuss: ‘Einige grundlegende Begriffe für eine
historische Darstellung der musikalischen
Dynamik’, IMusSCR III: Vienna 1909, 144–7
A. Heuss: ‘Über die Dynamik der Mannheimer Schule’,
i, Riemann-Festschrift (Leipzig, 1909/R), 433–55;
continued as ‘Die Dynamik der Mannheimer Schule, II:
die Detaildynamik’, ZMw, ii (1919–20), 44–54
A. Heuss: ‘Das Orchester-Crescendo bei
Beethoven’, ZMw, ix (1926–7), 361–5
R.E.M. Harding: Origins of Musical Time and
Expression (London, 1938), 85ff
H. Hering: ‘Die Dynamik in Johann Sebastian Bachs
Klaviermusik’, BJb 1949–50, 65–80
H.-H. Dräger: ‘Begriff des Tonkörpers’, AMw, ix (1952),
68–77; Eng. trans. as ‘The Concept of “Tonal Body”’,
in S.K. Langer: Reflections on Art (Baltimore, 1958),
174–85
E. Kurth: Studien zur Dynamik Max Regers (diss., U. of W.
Berlin, 1952)
D.D. Boyden: ‘Dynamics in Seventeenth- and
Eighteenth-Century Music’, Essays on Music in Honor
of Archibald Thompson Davison (Cambridge,
MA, 1957), 185–93
W. Kolneder: ‘Dynamik und Agogik in der Musik des
Barock’, IMSCR VII: Cologne 1958, 343–8 [with panel
discussion]
I. Fellinger: Über die Dynamik in der Musik von Johannes
Brahms (Berlin, 1961)
K. Marguerre: ‘Forte und Piano bei Mozart’, NZM, Jg.128
(1967), 153–60
B. Meier: ‘Hermann Fincks Practica Musica als Quelle zur
musikalischen Dynamik’, Mf, xxx (1977), 43–6
M. Staehelin: ‘Zur Stellung der Dynamik in Beethovens
Schaffensprozess’, BeJb 1978–81, 319–24
N. Todd: ‘The Dynamics of Dynamics: a Model of Musical
Expression’, Journal of the Acoustical Society of
America, xci (1992), 3540–50
W. Kroesbergen and J. Wentz: ‘Sonority in the 18th
Century: un poco più forte?’, EMc, xxii (1994), 482–95
c: metronome marks
E.F. Schmid: ‘Joseph Haydn und die Flötenuhr’, ZMw, xiv
(1931–2), 193–221, 335–6
H. Gál: ‘The Right Tempo’, MMR, lix (1939), 174–7
R. Kolisch: ‘Tempo and Character in Beethoven’s
Music’, MQ, xxix (1943), 169–87, 291–312
H. Beck: ‘Bemerkungen zu Beethovens Tempi’, BeJb
1955–6, 24–54
W. Gerstenberg: ‘Authentische Tempi für Mozarts “Don
Giovanni”?’, MJb 1960–61, 58–61 [marks by W.J.
Tomašek, 1839]
R. Münster: ‘Authentische Tempi zu den sechs letzten
Sinfonien W.A. Mozarts?’, MJb 1962–3, 185–99
[Hummel]
C. Bär: ‘Zu einem Mozart’schen Andante-Tempo’, Acta
mozartiana, x (1963), 78–84 [Gottfried Weber]
H. Beck: ‘Die Proportionen der Beethovenschen
Tempi’, Festschrift Walter Gerstenberg, ed. G. von
Dadelsen and A. Holschneider (Wolfenbüttel, 1964),
6–16
D. Kämper: ‘Zur Frage der Metronombezeichnungen
Robert Schumanns’, AMw, xxi (1964), 141–55
H.D. Johnstone: ‘Tempi in Corelli’s Christmas
Concerto’, MT, cvii (1966), 956–9 [Pasquali]
N. Temperley: ‘Tempo and Repeats in the Early
Nineteenth Century’, ML, xlvii (1966), 323–36 [George
Smart]
P. Stadlen: ‘Beethoven and the Metronome, I’, ML, xlviii
(1967), 330–49
R. Angermüller: ‘Aus der Frühgeschichte des Metronoms:
die Beziehungen zwischen Mälzel and Salieri’, ÖMz,
xxvi (1971), 134–40
H. Grüss: ‘Tempofragen der Bachzeit’, Bach-Studien, v
(1975), 73–81 [L’Affilard on dance tempos]
H.-K. Metzger and R. Riehn, eds.: Beethoven: das
Problem der Interpretation, Musik-Konzepte, no.8
(1979)
P. Stadlen: ‘Beethoven and the Metronome
[II]’, Soundings [Cardiff], ix (1982), 38–73
H. Seifert: ‘Czernys und Moscheles' Metronomisierungen
von Beethovens Werken für Klavier’, SMw, xxxiv
(1983), 61–83
W. Auhagen: ‘Chronometrische Tempoangaben im 18.
und 19. Jahrhundert’, AMw, xliv (1987), 40–57
E.H. Buxbaum: ‘Stravinsky, Tempo, and Le
sacre’, Performance Practice Review, i (1988), 61–70
A. Gross: ‘Tempomessung in J.P. Milchmeyers
Klavierschule von 1801’, Üben und Musizieren, v
(1988), 191–5
W. Malloch: ‘Carl Czerny's Metronome Marks for Haydn
and Mozart Symphonies’, EMc, xvi (1988), 72–82
S.P. Rosenblum: ‘Two Sets of Unexplored Metronome
Marks for Beethoven's Piano Sonatas’, EMc, xvi
(1988), 58–71
E. Rubin: ‘New Light on Late Eighteenth-Century Tempo:
William Crotch's Pendulum Markings’, Performance
Practice Review, ii (1989), 34–57
G. Wehmeyer: Prestississimo: die Wiederentdeckung der
Langsamkeit in der Musik (Hamburg, 1989)
C. Brown: ‘Historical Performance, Metronome Marks and
Tempo in Beethoven's Symphonies’, EMc, xix (1991),
247–58
N. Temperley: ‘Haydn's Tempos in The Creation’, EMc,
xix (1991), 235–45
R. Kolisch: Tempo und Charakter in Beethovens Musik,
Musik-Konzepte, nos.76–7 (1992) [annotated
definitive version of 1943 article]; Eng. trans. in MQ,
lxxvii (1993), 90–131, 268–342
H. Macdonald: ‘Berlioz and the Metronome’, Berlioz
Studies, ed. P. Bloom (Cambridge, 1992), 17–36
W. Auhagen: ‘Eine wenig beachtete Quelle zur
musikalischen Tempoauffassung im frühen 19.
Jahrhundert’, AMw, l (1993), 291–308 [Crotch]
T.Y. Levin: ‘Integral Interpretation: Introductory Notes to
Beethoven, Kolisch, and the Question of the
Metronome’, MQ, lxxvii (1993), 81–9
W. Nater: ‘Viel zu geschwinde!’: Anleitung zur richtigen
Umsetzung der Metronomzahlen und der
Ausführungsvorschriften der vorromantischen
Musik (Zürich, 1993)
L. Somfai: Béla Bartók: Composition, Concepts, and
Autograph Sources (Berkeley, 1996)

For further bibliography see Metronome (i).

d: marks and interpretation

BoydenH
MGG1 (‘Aufführungspraxis’, H. Hofmann; ‘Vortrag’, U.
Siegele)
G. Schünemann: Geschichte des
Dirigierens (Leipzig, 1913/R)
R. Vannes: Essai de terminologie musicale: dictionnaire
universel (Thann, Alsace, 1925/R)
R. Steglich: ‘Das Tempo als Problem der
Mozart-Interpretation’, Musikwissenschaftliche
Tagung der Internationalen Stiftung Mozarteum:
Salzburg 1931, 172–8
B. Simonds: ‘Chopin’s Use of the Term “con
anima”’, Music Teachers National Association:
Proceedings, xlii (1948), 151–7
S. Deas: ‘Beethoven’s “Allegro assai”’, ML, xxxi (1950),
333–6
L. Kunz: ‘Die Romanusbuchstaben c und t’, KJb, xxxiv
(1950), 7–9
R. Steglich: ‘Über Mozarts Adagio-Takt’, MJb 1951, 90–
111
R. Elvers: Untersuchungen zu den Tempi in Mozarts
Instrumentalmusik (diss., Free U. of Berlin, 1952)
W. Gerstenberg: Die Zeitmasse und ihre Ordnungen in
Bachs Musik (Einbeck, 1952/R)
F.-J. Machatius: Die Tempi in der Musik um 1600:
Fortwirkung und Auflösung einer Tradition (diss., Free
U. of Berlin, 1952)
F. Rothschild: The Lost Tradition in Music, i: Rhythm and
Tempo in J.S. Bach’s Time (London, 1953/R)
C. Sachs: Rhythm and Tempo (New York, 1953)
A. Gertler: ‘Souvenirs de collaboration avec Béla
Bartók’, ReM, no.224 (1953–4), 99–110
H. Beck: Studien über das Tempoproblem bei
Beethoven (diss., U. of Erlangen, 1954)
T. Dart: The Interpretation of Music (London, 1954,
4/1967)
W. Kolneder: Aufführungspraxis bei
Vivaldi (Leipzig, 1955, 2/1973)
F.-J. Machatius: ‘Über mensurale und spielmännische
Reduktion (der Integer valor und der
Kanzonettenpuls)’, Mf, viii (1955), 139–51
E. and P. Badura-Skoda: Mozart-Interpretation (Vienna,
1957/R; Eng. trans., 1962/R, as Interpreting Mozart on
the Keyboard)
A. Forte: ‘The Structural Origin of Exact Tempi in the
Brahms-Haydn Variations’, MR, xviii (1957), 138–49
C. Raeburn: ‘Das Zeitmass in Mozarts Opern’, ÖMz, xii
(1957), 329–32
A.G. Huber: Takt, Rhythmus, Tempo in den Werken von
Johann Sebastian Bach (Zürich, 1958)
F.-J. Machatius: ‘Die Tempo-Charaktere’, IMSCR VII:
Cologne 1958, 185–7
C. Dahlhaus: ‘Über das Tempo in der Musik des späten
16. Jahrhunderts’, Musica, xiii (1959), 767–9
I. Herrmann-Bengen: Tempobezeichnungen: Ursprung,
Wandel im 17. and 18. Jahrhundert (Tutzing, 1959)
J.P. Larsen: ‘Tempoprobleme bei Händel dargestellt am
“Messias”’, Händel-Ehrung der Deutschen
Demokratischen Republik: Halle 1959, 141–53; Eng.
trans. in American Choral Review, xiv/1 (1972), 31–41
E. Barthe: Takt und Tempo (Hamburg, 1960)
F. Goebels: Studien zur Tempoindikation in der
Klaviermusik seit Ph.E. Bach (diss., U. of
Cologne, 1960)
G. Houle: The Musical Measure as Discussed by
Theorists from 1650 to 1800 (diss., Stanford U., 1960)
K. Reinhard: ‘Zur Frage des Tempos bei Chopin’, The
Works of Frederick Chopin: Warsaw 1960, 449–54
C. Dahlhaus: ‘Zur Entstehung des modernen
Taktsystems im 17. Jahrhundert’, AMw, xviii (1961),
223–40
F. Rothschild: The Lost Tradition of Music, ii: Musical
Performance in the Times of Mozart and
Beethoven (London and New York, 1961)
I. Fellinger: ‘Zum Problem der Zeitmasse in Brahms’
Musik’, GfMKB: Kassel 1962, 219–22
W. Gerstenberg: ‘Andante’, GfMKB: Kassel 1962, 156–8
H.O. Hiekel: ‘“Tactus” und Tempo’, GfMKB: Kassel 1962,
145–7
P. Mies: ‘Über ein besonderes Akzentzeichen bei Joh.
Brahms’, GfMKB: Kassel 1962, 215–17; enlarged
in BMw, v (1963), 213–22
U. Siegele: ‘Bemerkungen zu Bachs Motetten’, BJb 1962,
33–57
R. Steglich: ‘Mozarts Mailied: Allegro Aperto?’, MJb
1962–3, 96–107
R. Donington: The Interpretation of Early
Music (London, 1963, 4/1989), esp. chap.35, ‘Tempo
in Early Music’, and chap.49, ‘Volume’
G. Frotscher: Aufführungspraxis alter
Musik (Wilhelmshaven, 1963, 8/1997; Eng. tans.,
1981)
A. Geoffroy-Dechaume: Les ‘secrets’ de la musique
ancienne: recherches sur l’interprétation XVIe–XVIIe–
XVIIIe siècles (Paris, 1964/R), 111ff
C. Jacobs: Tempo Notation in Renaissance
Spain (Brooklyn, NY, 1964)
F.-J. Machatius: ‘Dreiertakt und Zweiertakt als
Eurhythmus und Ekrhythmus’, Festschrift Walter
Gerstenberg, ed. G. von Dadelsen and A.
Holschneider (Wolfenbüttel, 1964), 88–97
F. Rothschild: Vergessene Traditionen in der Musik: zur
Aufführungspraxis von Bach bis
Beethoven (Zürich, 1964) [reworking of books of 1953
and 1961]
‘Le tempo: séance de la Société française de musicologie,
Fontenay, 1965’, FAM, xii/2 (1965) [esp. C. Cudworth:
‘The Meaning of “Vivace” in Eighteenth Century
England’, 194–6; B.S. Brook: ‘Le tempo dans
 l’exécution musicale à la fin du XVIIIe siècle: les
contributions de C. Mason et William Crotch’, 196–204;
also incl. articles by D. Launay, C. Marcel-Dubois, G.
Thibault, A. Verchaly]
J.T. Johnson: ‘How to “Humour” John Jenkins’
Three-Part Dances: Performance Directions in a
Newberry Library MS’, JAMS, xx (1967), 197–208
A. Mendel: ‘Some Ambiguities of the Mensural
System’, Studies in Music History: Essays for Oliver
Strunk, ed. H. Powers (Princeton, NJ, 1968), 137–60
Z. Chechlińska: ‘Rodzaje tempa w utworach Chopina’
[Types of tempo in Chopin’s compositions], Muzyka,
xiv/2 (1969), 45–52
I. Saslav: Tempos in the String Quartets of Joseph
Haydn (diss., Indiana U., 1969)
J. Tobin: Handel’s Messiah (London, 1969), esp. 83, 85ff,
260ff
H.C. Wolff: ‘Das Tempo bei Telemann’, BMw, xi (1969),
41–6
W. Kolneder: Georg Muffat zur
Aufführungspraxis (Strasbourg, 1970)
W.F. Kümmel: ‘Zum Tempo in der italienischen
Mensuralmusik des 15. Jahrhunderts’, AcM, xlii (1970),
150–63
J.A. Bank: Tactus, Tempo and Notation in Mensural
Music from the 13th to the 17th
Century (Amsterdam, 1972)
R. Leibowitz: ‘Tempo and Character in the Music of
Verdi’, Studi verdiani III: Milan 1972, 238–43
N. Zaslaw: ‘Mozart’s Tempo Conventions’, IMSCR XI:
Copenhagen 1972, 720–33
R. Donington: A Performer’s Guide to Baroque
Music (London, 1973)
D.P. Charlton: Orchestration and Orchestral Practice in
Paris, 1789 to 1810 (diss., U. of Cambridge, 1974)
U. Siegele: ‘“La cadence est une qualité de la bonne
musique”’, Studies in Renaissance and Baroque
Music in Honor of Arthur Mendel, ed. R.L. Marshall
(Kassel and Hackensack, NJ, 1974), 124–35 [on
Rousseau]
C. Wagner: ‘Experimentelle Untersuchungen über das
Tempo’, ÖMz, xxix (1974), 589–604
H. Ferguson: Keyboard Interpretation (London, 1975),
40ff
W.S. Newman: ‘Freedom of Tempo in Schubert’s
Instrumental Music’, MQ, lxi (1975), 528–45
P. Cahn: ‘Retardatio, ritardando’ (1974), HMT
M. Rudolf: ‘Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Temponahme
bei Mozart’, MJb 1976–7, 204–24
W.S. Newman: ‘Das Tempo in Beethovens
Instrumentalmusik: Tempowahl und
Tempoflexibilität’, Mf, xxxiii (1980), 161–83
S. Mauser: ‘Zum Verhältnis von Tempo- und
Ausdrucksbezeichnungen in den späten
Klaviersonaten Beethovens’, ÖMz, xxxvi (1981), 617–
22
P. Tenhaef: Studien zur Vortragsbezeichnung in der
Musik des 19. Jahrhunderts (Kassel, 1983)
H. Haack: ‘Ausdruck und Texttreue: Bemerkungen zur
Aufführungspraxis der Musik Schönbergs und seiner
Schüler’, Die Wiener Schule in der Musikgeschichte
des 20. Jahrhunderts: Vienna 1984, 202–12
R. Marshall: ‘Tempo and Dynamic Indications in the Bach
Sources: a Review of the Terminology’, Bach, Handel,
Scarlatti: Tercentenary Essays, ed. P. Williams
(Cambridge, 1985), 259–75
K. Hortschansky: ‘Clementi und der musikalische
Ausdruck’, Chigiana, new ser., xviii (1987), 59–85
J.-P. Marty: The Tempo Indications of Mozart (New
Haven, CT, 1988)
N. Raabe: ‘Tempo in Mahler as Recollected by Nathalie
Bauer-Lechner’, Performance Practice Review, iii
(1990), 70–72
S. Rosenblum: Performance Practices in Classical Piano
Music (Bloomington, IN, 1991)
M. Flothuis: ‘Mozart und das Vortragszeichen “cantabile”:
Gedanken zum 3. Satz des Streichquartetts KV
464’, De editione musices: Festschrift Gerhard Croll,
ed. W. Gratzer and A. Lindmayr (Laaber, 1992), 17–
26
K. Miehling: Das Tempo in der Musik von Barock und
Vorklassik (Wilhelmshaven, 1993)
F. Neumann: Performance Practices of the Seventeenth
and Eighteenth Centuries (New York, 1993)
L. Sawkins: ‘Doucement and légèrement: Tempo in
French Baroque Music’, EMc, xxi (1993), 365–74
M. Bent: ‘The Meaning of ’, EMc, xxiv (1996), 199–225
H. Schneider, ed.: Aspekte der Zeit in der Musik: Alois
Ickstadt zum 65. Geburtstag (Hildesheim, 1997)
J.-J. Dünki, A. Haefeli and R. Rapp, eds.: Der Grad der
Bewegung: Tempovorstellungen und -konzepte in
Komposition und Interpretation, 1900–
1950 (Berne, 1998)
Tempo, Rhythmik, Metrik, Artikulation in der Musik des 18.
Jahrhunderts: Blankenburg, Harz, 1995

Tempo di gavotta
(It.).
Title used for gavotte-style movements in instrumental
works of the first half of the 18th century. James
Grassineau wrote that the title means that ‘the time or
movement of a gavotte is imitated, without any regard had
to the measure or number of bars or strains’ (A Musical
Dictionary, London, 1740; trans. from
Brossard, Dictionaire de musique, Paris, 1703). A famous
example is in J.S. Bach's Partita in E minor for keyboard
which may be considered an improvisation on the ‘gavotte
idea’, in a moderate tempo and with the predominant
movement or beat in minims. Other examples may be
seen in Corelli's sonatas opp.2, 4 and 5. See Gavotte.
MEREDITH ELLIS LITTLE

Tempo di minuetto [tempo di

menuetto]
(It.: ‘In minuet time’).
A tempo direction often used as a movement heading
beginning in the 18th century. It implies a recognized
understanding of minuet tempo, which however was not
standardized in the 18th century, so the direction is
inherently ambiguous; it is sometimes qualified by more
specific tempo indications (e.g. in
Beethoven's Gratulations-Menuett [WoO 3], the marking is
‘Tempo di menuetto [sic] quasi allegretto’). As a
movement type, tempo di minuetto is associated in
particular with the minuet finale, but it is also used for
dance movements (see Minuet).
TILDEN A. RUSSELL

Tempo giusto
(It.: ‘just time’, ‘strict time’).
(1) The abstract concept of a ‘correct’ tempo for a piece.
Frescobaldi (preface to Toccate e partite, 1615) wrote that
‘Nelle partite si pigli il tempo giusto e proportionato’;
Rousseau (1768, article ‘Mouvement’) stated that each
basic measure had an ideal tempo called in Italy
the tempo giusto; and Kirnberger (1776), following
Rousseau’s lead, explained all the tempo marks in relation
to a tempo giusto which was ‘determined by the time
signature and by the shortest and longest note values
contained in a piece’.
(2) As a tempo designation (also a tempo giusto) actually
affixed to a piece it is rarer, but found particularly in
Handel. ‘Egypt was glad’, ‘He led them out of the deep’,
‘Thy right hand’ and ‘The horse and his rider’ from Israel in
Egypt are all tempo giusto; and Handel originally marked
the allegro moderato in the Messiah overture as a tempo
giusto before changing it to the present marking. It was
presumably in the same sense that Stravinsky used tempo
giusto to open his ‘Dumbarton Oaks’ Concerto. But when
Chopin used it for some of his waltzes (though scarcely
elsewhere in his work) he was indicating that the
traditional waltz tempo should be adopted. In 1800 William
Crotch wrote to the Monthly Magazine observing, among
other things, that ‘[tempo ordinario] varies with the fashion
of the age, [tempo giusto] with the fancy or judgement of
the performers’.
(3) A direction to return to strict tempo after a deviation. It
is found particularly often in Italian Baroque opera and
described by Brossard (1703, article ‘Tempo’); but its use
continued through the 19th century, for instance in Liszt,
who normally used it to mark the end of an a
piacere section.

For bibliography see Tempo and expression marks.

DAVID FALLOWS

Tempo ordinario
(It.: ‘common time’).
(1) The Italian name for common time, 4/4, as explained
by Brossard (1703, article ‘Tempo’) and many subsequent
writers.
(2) As a tempo designation (also a tempo ordinario) it is
found particularly in Handel, who used it, for instance, in
‘Lift up your heads’ and ‘Their sound is gone out’. But,
like Tempo giusto, it was evidently in fairly current use as
a concept to describe the ordinary, non-committal tempo
that required no tempo designation. It was presumably in
this sense that Beethoven wrote to Schott on 18
December 1826, saying: ‘We can hardly have any tempi
ordinari any more, now that we must follow our free
inspiration’.

For bibliography see Tempo and expression marks.

DAVID FALLOWS

Tempo primo
(It.: ‘first pace’).
After a change of tempo in the course of a composition,
the indication tempo primo directs that its opening pace is
to be resumed.

Temporale (i)
(It.: ‘storm’).
A term used to describe the storm scenes common in
19th-century Italian opera, in particular the operas of
Rossini (e.g. La Cenerentola and Il barbiere di Siviglia). It
is sometimes applied to Verdi’s storm scenes (e.g.
in Rigoletto) although he did not use the term. In musical
style temporali appear to show a debt to the fourth
movement of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony.

Temporale (ii)
(Lat.: ‘Proper of the Time’).
See Liturgy and liturgical books, §II, 1.

Tempo rubato.
See Rubato.

Temps
(Fr.).
See Beat.

Temptations, the.
American soul and rhythm and blues vocal group. They
came together in Detroit in 1961 when Eddie Kendricks
(1939–92) and Paul Williams (1939–73), formerly of the
Primes, joined forces with Melvin Franklin (1942–95), Otis
Williams (b 1941) and Eldridge Bryant of the Distants.
They were signed to Motown as the Elgins (their name
was quickly changed to the Temptations by Berry Gordy);
most of their recordings were released on the subsidiary
label Gordy records. Between 1962 and 1994 the group
had an astonishing 82 singles in the American rhythm and
blues chart, 52 of which also entered the pop charts. In
1963 David Ruffin replaced Bryant, forming the
Temptations' classic line-up. Ruffin possessed a gruff
baritone that was juxtaposed by their producer, Smokey
Robinson, with Eddie Kendricks's sweeping falsetto. The
results were such classic records as The Way You Do the
Things You Do (1964), My Girl (1965) and Get
Ready (1966). In 1966 Norman Whitfield began writing
and producing for the group and, in combination with
lyricist Barrett Strong, he placed the Temptations in a
harder-edged southern soul idiom, leading them to even
greater success with such hits as Ain't Too Proud to
Beg (1966), (I know) I'm losing you (1966) and I wish it
would rain (1968). In early 1968 Ruffin was replaced by a
former member of the Contours, Dennis Edwards. Heavily
influenced by the funk pioneers Sly and the Family Stone,
in late 1968 Whitfield once again recast the Temptations,
this time in the psychedelic soul idiom with such
masterpieces as Cloud Nine (1968), I can't get next to
you (1969), Psychedelic Shack and Ball of Confusion
(That's what the world is today), both released in 1970.
After more personnel changes from 1973 onwards the
group recorded a series of increasingly funky singles with
Edwards taking most of the lead vocal parts. The best of
these were Papa was a rolling stone (1972) and Shaky
Ground (1975).
In 1975 the group lost its producer when Whitfield left
Motown and from then on the Temptations had some
success in the rhythm and blues charts but their creative
prime had passed. Nonetheless they remain the most
successful vocal group in black music history.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
O. Williams with P. Romanowski: Temptations (New
York, 1988)
T. Turner with B. Aria: Deliver Us from Temptation (New
York, 1992)
N. George: ‘Cool as They Wanna be’, Emperors of Soul,
Motown 0338 (1994) [disc notes]
H. Weinger: ‘Sunshine on a Cloudy Day’, Emperors of
Soul, Motown 0338 (1994) [disc notes