With respect to Beethoven's share in the metamorphosis of his instrumental music, and particularly of his Symphonies, it is necessary first to acquaint the reader that this metamorphosis relates wholly and solely to metronomising, or the regulation of time by means of the metronome.
Those who have read Matheson's "Vollkommener Kapell-meister" are aware that that great writer on music laid down, a century ago, the following principle[117]—"That the tempo of a great musical composition depends on the manner in which it is set for orchestra and chorus; for the greater the number of singers and players, the slower should be the tempo, on the simple principle that masses always move slowly." If intelligibility be the most essential condition in the performance of a musical composition, it is self-evident that the direction for the tempo can only be conditional; and that, consequently, an Allegro vivace, with an orchestra of one hundred and twenty performers, must become very considerably modified from the same Allegro vivace originally metronomised by the composer for an orchestra of sixty. That which, in the latter case, is, as it were, a condition of the intended effect, ceases to be such in the former case, because the object may already be obtained, à priori, through the two-fold power being communicated. The fuller orchestra should therefore take a less rapid time than that specified for the more limited number of performers.
Unluckily this important principle in the conducting of an orchestra is but too seldom recognised, even by those who are regarded as authorities in orchestral direction. I have had frequent occasion to remark this neglect, occasioned by ignorance in the performance of Beethoven's works; and in those cases the effect was, of course, a true offspring of the cause, and exhibited a total misconception of the real spirit of the compositions. To perform Beethoven's music, without regard to meaning and clearness, is hunting to death the ideas of the immortal composer. This mode of performance naturally arises out of the manifest ignorance of the sublime spirit of those works. It is at the same time the cause of their profanation, and consequently of their having too soon fallen into disuse; for the dignity and deep expression of many of the movements are sacrificed when a moderate rhythm is converted into the rhythm of dancing-time, especially if to this accelerated time be added the clang of a superabundant number of instruments. Hence may be traced the principal cause of that metamorphosis which suffices to convert a composition of lofty poetic feeling into a common prosaic piece[118]—a transformation which the performers may literally be said to work out by the sweat of the brow. Such a perverted mode of execution must render it impossible for the most attentive listener to feel the sublimity of the composer's idea.[119]
Beethoven lived to see this transformation of his works. On one occasion, when he was present at a performance of his Symphony in A major, by the orchestra of the great music meeting in Vienna, he was very much displeased at the too rapid time taken in the second movement, the Allegretto. However, upon reflection, he acknowledged that the conductor had duly observed the metronomic sign affixed to the movement, but that he had not attended to Matheson's doctrine. In one of the musical articles which I wrote for the Wiener Theater Zeitung, in alluding to the Symphony in A major, I related the above fact in the following words:—"At a performance of this Symphony, in the latter years of Beethoven, the composer remarked, with displeasure, that the allegretto movement was given much too fast, by which its character was entirely destroyed. He thought to obviate for the future all misconception of the tempo, by marking the movement by the words Andante, quasi Allegretto, with the metronomic sign
= 80.; and I find a memorandum to this effect in his note-book, which is in my possession. Beethoven complained generally of the misunderstanding of the tempi at the concerts of the great Vienna Musical Society, and especially that the task of principal conductorship on those occasions was always consigned to the hands of dilettanti, who were unused to direct and govern large masses of performers. These causes of dissatisfaction led Beethoven one day to make the important declaration, that he had not composed his Symphonies for such vast orchestras as that usually assembled for the Vienna Musical Society;[120] and that it never was his intention to write noisy music. He added, that his instrumental works required an orchestra of about sixty performers only; for he was convinced that it was by such an orchestra alone that the rapidly-changing shades of expression could be adequately given, and the character and poetic subject of each movement duly preserved.[121] That this declaration was dictated by sincere conviction will be readily admitted when I acquaint the reader that Beethoven was anxious to have his works performed in their true spirit, at the Concerts Spirituels, the orchestra of which contained something like the number of performers he had specified; and that he did not interest himself about their performance at the great music meeting. If double the amount of sixty performers displeased Beethoven, what would he have said of three or four times that number, no unusual orchestral occurrence at our music-festivals? What would he have said had he heard his Symphonies and Overtures performed by an orchestra increased by repieni, the only one admissible at Oratorios, and in which, noise is paramount? Even M. Ries has had the Symphonies performed by such an orchestra, at the Lower Rhine music-festival; to this I was myself on one occasion a witness. Had Beethoven been present, he would doubtless have exclaimed, "My dear pupil, how little do you understand me!" A few movements only of Beethoven's Symphonies (for example, the last of that in A major, and the last of the ninth Symphony) are suited to an orchestra in which the number of performers amounts to three or four times sixty.
His own observations, coupled with accounts received from various places, describing the ineffective performance of the Symphonies in consequence of mistaken ideas of their tempi, induced Beethoven, in the winter of 1825-26, to investigate the cause of the errors. This he did in my presence, and he ascertained that the metronomic signs in the printed scores were faulty, in fixing the tempi too quick; and, indeed, he declared that many of those metronomic signs were not authorised by him. I may here mention that the Symphonies, from No. 1 to No. 6 inclusive, were published before the invention of Maelzel's metronome; and it is only to the 7th and 9th Symphonies that the metronomic signs can, with positive certainty, be said to have been given by Beethoven. Whether or not he metronomed the 8th Symphony (the score of which was only lately published) I cannot positively determine. I do not recollect having heard him speak of metronoming that Symphony, though a great deal of conversation passed between us on the subject of the composition itself.
The same may be said in reference to his Sonatas. Only to those published since Maelzel's invention have the metronomic signs been affixed by Beethoven's own hand. These do not exceed four in number; viz., Op. 106, 109, 110, and 111. Those who have added metronomic indices to the other Sonatas, in the various editions that have been published, prove, by the result of their labour, that they were as little acquainted with the spirit of Beethoven's music as are the inhabitants of this world with the transactions going on in the moon or in Saturn. That piano-forte virtuosi, even of the highest rank, should have presumed to act the part of interpreters and law-givers in Beethoven's music[122] is a matter of regret:[123] and all true admirers of the great master, who may wish to form a just notion of his Sonatas, either as to conception or execution, should be earnestly warned not to listen to their performance by any virtuoso who has laboured all his life on difficult passages, having only in view to improve the mechanical power of the fingers; unless, indeed, it be merely bravura movements; of which, thank Heaven, there are but few among these compositions. Beethoven truly remarked, "that a certain class of piano-forte performers seemed to lose intelligence and feeling in proportion as they gained dexterity of fingering." What can such bravura players make of the melodies of Beethoven, so simple yet so profoundly imbued with sentiment? Precisely what Liszt[124] makes of Schubert's songs—what Paganini made of the Cantilena in Rode's concerto—and what Rubini makes of Beethoven's "Adelaide." All these, it must be acknowledged, are tasteless perversions of beautiful originals—violations of truth and right feeling in all those points in which such offences can be most sensibly felt.
To point out only one example of the injury inflicted on Beethoven's music by professional metronoming, I may mention the metronomic signs of the two Sonatas (Op. 27) in the recently published Vienna and London editions; the very sight of them occasions surprise: but to hear these Sonatas played according to the metronomic signs affixed to them, leads one to wish that all piano-forte metronomers were put under the ban.[125] But even this is not the only cause of complaint against these perverters of all truth in expression. Are they not the very men who by their frivolities, romantic and unromantic, have latterly given to the taste for truly good and classic composition that unhealthful direction which threatens soon to bring all genuine music under the dominion of the superficial—if, indeed, it has not already submitted to that authority? Is not their handiwork (art, it cannot be called) directed solely to the object of pleasing the multitude, and on that account must they not descend to the level of vulgar taste? Since Hummel's death there perhaps exists not, in Germany especially, any professor of the piano-forte, F. Mendelssohn Bartholdy excepted, who, fired by enthusiasm, keeps in view the honourable object of elevating his hearers to the standard of his own high feeling—a duty which Art demands from all her devotees, whether professors or dilettanti.
The Sonata in c sharp minor, Op. 27, (called the Moonlight Sonata), is metronomed as follows in the edition lately published by T. Haslinger, of Vienna:—