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10. Mendelssohn’s Tempo Indications
- Indiana University Press
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Much has been written and debated about the tempi of music by Bach, Mozart,Beethoven,Brahms,Mahler,and even Stravinsky.The generation of Mendelssohn, Schumann, Berlioz, and Chopin, however, seems to have been skipped in this discussion.This is surprising, since in many ways these composers hold the key to understanding and decoding tempo conventions of the late eighteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries, for they had to come to terms with the changes in tempo indications away from traditional tempo terms toward the “technological” and seemingly more accurate metronome marks. While Mendelssohn played a highly influential role both as composer and as performer,this chapter will focus mainly on Mendelssohn’s approach to tempo as composer. Mendelssohn and the Metronome For his twenty-sixth birthday on 3 February 1835 Mendelssohn was given a metronome by Karl Gottlieb Kyllmann (1803–78) with the complaint that the composer never included metronome marks in his printed music.1 A look at Mendelssohn’s published works before February 1835 confirms that the composer preferred not to publish metronome marks. His arrangement for four hands of his overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream is the only printed work with metronome marks prior to 1837.While it is not known whether Mendelssohn had owned a metronome before 1835, there are a few metronome marks in some autographs of his early works (see table 10.1). Surprisingly, these works are the only compositions with metronome marks in all his autographs. Mendelssohn clearly did not use 10 Mendelssohn’s Tempo Indications siegwart reich w ald the metronome as part of his compositional routine, when dealing with the tempo terms for his works.The metronome marks in the autograph score of the Symphony No. 1 in C minor, op. 11, for example, are made in pencil , indicating that Mendelssohn added these marks for a particular performance .2 He chose not to include them in the published version (Berlin: Schlesinger, 1834; London: Cramer,Addison, and Beale, 1839). The next mention of the metronome in Mendelssohn’s correspondence came under very unusual circumstances.After having been informed of the death of his father, Mendelssohn quickly had to make arrangements for the upcoming concerts in Leipzig before leaving for Berlin. His instructions to Heinrich Conrad Schleinitz (1802–81), written on 20 November 1835, include metronome marks for the performance of his The Fair Melusine overture .3 Since Mendelssohn had been unable to find another conductor, he asked the timpanist Friedrich August Grenser (1799–1861) to rehearse the overture.While the inclusion of the metronome mark ( h = 96) might indicate Mendelssohn’s lack of confidence in the timpanist’s musical abilities, it also reflects the composer’s growing uneasiness over the potential for wrong tempo choices by the conductor. Several months earlier Carl Klingemann wrote about the performance of the overture by their good friend and highly regarded musician Ignaz Moscheles: At the last Philharmonic-concert your Melusine was launched,—it’s actually better not to say anything,as much as it irks me,the success was only one-tenth of what I had expected. . . . By the way, I was convinced that the tempo of the overture was too slow, and I diligently shared my concern after the rehearsal; M[oscheles] appeared to listen and promised to take a quicker tempo in the performance. But I did not notice that, it was and stayed too slow, which made the cheery section lose its impact.4 Another interesting mention of the metronome is in a letter from Fanny seven months later, in which she asks for metronome markings for 190 Siegwart Reichwald Table 10.1. Metronome Marks in Mendelssohn’s Autographs Source of metronome Modern edition with Works markings metronome markings Six Little Pieces D-B MN 1 Date: 1820 Sinfonia No. 8 in D major (string version) D-B MN 2 LMA I/2 Date: 6–27 November 1822 Symphony No. 1 in C minor, op. 11 RPS MS 109 LMA I/4, p. 172 Date: 1824, revised 1829 [54.91.19.62] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 10:26 GMT) two movements of the unpublished Paulus; Fanny and brother Paul had been arguing over the correct tempi.5 Maybe it is not quite as surprising then that Mendelssohn included metronome marks in his published score of Paulus (a composition he viewed as his first mature major work) in 1837, despite the fact that it was not until 1839 that Mendelssohn mentioned the metronome again. In a letter...