Words and other instructions in musical scores used to define the speed and specify the manner of performance.
4. Considerations in establishing the tempo.
5. Early history of performance instructions.
DAVID FALLOWS
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
Tempo and expression marks, §5: Early history of performance instructions
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)
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
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).
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