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Re: [F_minor] Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata



Etha Williams wrote:
As for the tempo, I'm not entirely sure what to make of Gould's approach
here, especially in light of his expressed admiration of the third movement
-- although I like the tempo of the first movement very much, I agree that
the third seems a bit too fast. I tried to find some unifying relationship
between the three tempi in hopes that this might elucidate things, but had
little success, and am inclined to think that this was not a case in which
Gould carefully planned a single consistent "pulse" to carry through the
various tempi of the piece. But FWIW, here are the approximate tempi I
calculated (using a stopwatch to time the first four or eight bars and
calculating thence):

1. Adagio Sostenuto (4/4 time): quarter note = 74
      *however, the ritard takes us to an ending approximate speed of
quarter=42


Just to be clear: that first movement *is not* in 4/4 time. It's in cut C (2/2). The beat is supposed to be the half note (six of the triplet notes together, the half bar) here, not four to a bar. Yes, it's marked "Adagio sostenuto", but that applies to the half-note level, not the quarter-note level.... On early pianos, such things as the three-bar tie in the bass (bar 35-37) simply die out to nothingness if the tempo is too slow.

The companion sonata, Op 27 #1, also has its opening movement in that same meter: cut C. Its harmonic motion agrees with that, too: it hardly ever changes harmony except at the half-bar level.


Brad Lehman of the Committee to Stop Dawdling in Beethoven's Opus 27 _______________________________________________ F_minor mailing list F_minor@email.rutgers.edu https://email.rutgers.edu/mailman/listinfo/f_minor