Historical Evidence of Tempi in the 18th and 19th Centuries

The purpose of this document is to bring together a comprehensive body of

historical sources describing the musical tempi that have been practiced in the 18th
and 19th centuries in Europe. The document lists over 200 different sources of
various kinds (from composers, musical reviews, concert programs, playbills, and
eyewitness testimony), that provide measurements of concert timings and
calculated estimates of various musical pieces in minutes and hours.1

***

For the sake of convenience, all data is arranged in roughly chronological order. The
source references are provided in the footnotes, sometimes with direct web links. I
have made an effort to locate the primary documents whenever possible—
otherwise, scholarly publications are cited. All the cited musical reviews are freely
available online and could be easily found through a search in Google Books.2 I
would encourage the reader to compare the listed timing with modern recordings
(or with the composer’s metronome numbers when available) to get the sense of the
tempi involved.3

For comments, questions, or if you know of sources I didn’t mention, please contact
me via [email protected]. If you like this document, feel free to share it.

1
I would like to thank Joris Lejeune and Aldo Roberto Pessolano for their invaluable help in providing me with
sources, translating, and metronome calculations.
2
A very extensive alphabetical list of historical music journals and newspapers (including links) is available at
https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Zeitschriften_(Musik)
3
For some pieces I have provided suggested calculations, which the reader may check for himself, and also timings of
modern recordings for comparison.
Table of Contents

J. S. Bach [3]
Handel [3]
Mozart [5]
Haydn [8]
Opera Playbills [12]
Beethoven [14]
Sir George Smart [20]
Cherubini [24]
Mendelssohn [26]
Berwald [27]
Schumann [27]
Berlioz [28]
Wagner [30]
Liszt [31]
Brahms [36]
Alkan [38]
Cesar Franck [41]
Concert Timings [46]
Interpretation and Analysis [61]
Appendix: Early 19th Century
Descriptions of the Metronome [69]
Note: AMZ = Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung
J. S. Bach:
 Recommended duration for a church cantata: 25-35 minutes (c.1747):4

George Frideric Handel:

 Solomon:5 2 hours and 10 minutes6
 Judas Maccabaeus:7 1 hour and 45 minutes

 Esther:8 “two and a half hours” (1737)9

 The Messiah: “2 hours long” (1753)10
 Funeral Anthem for Queen Caroline (HWV 264):11

4
The timing may come from Bach himself, see Bach’s Numbers: Compositional Proportion and Significance by Ruth
Tatlow, p.116. https://books.google.com/books?id=7KMyCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA116
5
Gardiner’s recording of the piece lasts 1 hour and 15 minutes.
6
Quoted from Handel by Donald Burrows, p.404. https://books.google.com/books?id=8fHja-D-FvsC&pg=PA404
7
Modern recordings of the pieces can last from 2 hours and 20 minutes up to 2 hours and 50 minutes.
8
Modern recordings of the pieces last from an hour and a half to two hours, depending on the edition of the score.
9
Performance Practice: A Dictionary-guide for Musicians by Roland John Jackson, p.176.
https://books.google.com/books?id=_w32_CqDNWkC&pg=PA176
10
Anleitung zur musikalischen Gelahrtheit, 1758, p. 95.
https://books.google.com/books?id=nhgPkKOHO48C&pg=PA95
11
Typical modern recordings of the piece last around 45 minutes.

3
“The anthem was yesterday Morning rehears’d at the French Chapel adjoining to St.
James’s Palace; there were about 140 Performers; it took up just 50 minutes in the
Rehearsal, and the Music was extremely grand and solemn” (The London Evening-
Post, Dec. 1737) 12

13

 Michel Richard de Lalande’s (1657 – 1726) Te Deum: “30-35 minutes”14

 Quantz (1752): “To insure a proportional length, even in a concerto, consult a

timepiece. If the first movement takes five minutes, the Adagio five to six, and the
last movement three to four, the whole is of the proper length. And it is in
12
Quoted from Handel and the English Chapel Royal by Donald Burrows, p. 364.
13
Ibid, p.366.
14
Quoted from Doucement and légèrement: tempo in French Baroque music by Lionel Sawkins, p.369. See the table
on p.370 for timings of individual movements. As the author notes in a footnote to the article, most of the existing
recordings of the piece do not perform the complete score, except the recording by Paul Colleaux on Erato who closely
adheres to the indicated timing by de Lalande.

4
 general more advantageous if the listeners find a piece rather too short than too
long.” (from Versuch einer Anweisung die Flöte traversiere zu spielen)15
 Vivaldi’s “Spring” concerto from The Four Seasons: “lasted a good 15 minutes”
(Basel, 1755)16
 C.P.E. Bach’s Heilig ist Gott (Wq 217) (1779):17

W. A. Mozart
 Letter by Wolfgang Mozart to Padre Martini from September 4, 1776: “Our
church music is very different from that of Italy, since a mass with the whole
Kyrie, the Gloria, the Credo, the Epistle sonata, the Offertory or Motet, the
Sanctus and the Agnus Dei must not last longer than three quarters of an hour.
This applies even to the most Solemn Mass said by the Archbishop himself.”18
 Letter by Leopold Mozart to Wolfgang from September 1778: “Yesterday I was
for the first time [this season] the director of the great concert at court. At
present the music ends at around a quarter past eight. Yesterday it began around
seven o’clock and, as I left, a quarter past eight struck – thus an hour and a
quarter. Generally only four pieces are performed: a symphony, an aria, a
symphony or concerto, then an aria, and with this, Addio!”19

15
Quoted from Source Readings in Music History by Oliver Strunk, p.588.
https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.29049/page/n612
16
‘ . . . so beautiful that I was almost beside myself ’: Vivaldi and the Basel Collegium Musicum by Robert Kintzel,
p.115.
17
Quoted from C.P.E. Bach by David Schulenberg, pp.379-381.
https://books.google.com/books?id=FTorDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA379
18
Quoted from The Letters of Mozart and his Family by Stanley Sadie and Fiona Smart (eds.), p.113.
https://books.google.com/books?id=k5qvCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA113
19
Quoted from The Cambridge Companion to Mozart (Simon P. Keefe ed.), p.15.
https://books.google.com/books?id=tBpwd6f-Rt8C&pg=PA15

5
 Mozart’s La Finta Semplice:20 2.5-3 hours. “It is not an opera seria, for no operas
of that kind are being given now, and moreover, people do not like them. It is an
opera buffa, but not a short one, for it is to last about two hours and a half or
three hours.” (letter by Leopold Mozart from January 30, 1768)21
 Mozart’s Mitridate:22 around 4 hours (probably less). “this opera with its three
ballets lasts six good hours. The ballets [not by Mozart], however, are now going
to be shortened, for they last two hours at least.” (letter by Leopold Mozart to his
wife from December 29, 1770)23

24

 Mozart’s Don Giovanni:25 2.5 hours

- “The curtain rises at 7 o'clock and falls at 9.30 o'clock.” (announcement in a
Prague newspaper from October 30, 1787 [conducted by Mozart?])26
- Opera playbill for a Prague production of September 23, 1788 (conducted by
Mozart?): 7:00 PM – 9:30 PM [reproduced below]27
- Opera playbill for a Leipzig production of June 15, 1788: 5:30 PM – 8:00
PM.28

20
The uncut version of the opera takes 2 hours and 45 minutes on a recording by Leopold Hager (issued on Orfeo and
Brilliant).
21
Quoted from Opera Buffa in Mozart's Vienna by Mary Hunter and James Webster (eds.), p.43.
https://books.google.com/books?id=uZrFCNsmBlkC&pg=PA43 The complete letter in German is found in
https://books.google.com/books?id=uPvtlUJuMNsC&pg=PA134
22
Modern uncut recordings of the opera take around 3 hours.
23
Quoted from The Letters of Mozart and his Family, p.176.
https://books.google.com/books?id=k5qvCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA176
24
Quoted from The Grotesque Dancer on the Eighteenth-century Stage by Rebecca Harris-Warrick and Bruce Alan
Brown (eds.), p.16. https://books.google.com/books?id=dmCHTvwwlH0C&pg=PA15
25
The Prague and Vienna versions of the opera take around 2 hours and 40 minutes on Gardiner’s recording.
26
Quoted from Mozart: A Documentary Biography by Otto Erich Deutsch, p.302.
https://books.google.com/books?id=e8AtwaddUW4C&pg=PA302
27
https://c7.alamy.com/comp/KD6NKG/oldest-playbill-in-existence-for-performance-of-wolfgang-amadeus-mozarts-
KD6NKG.jpg
28
https://c7.alamy.com/comp/KD6NKP/playbill-for-leipzig-premiere-of-wolfgang-amadeus-mozarts-opera-don-
KD6NKP.jpg

6
 Mozart’s Requiem KV.626: “lasts a good hour” (1796)29

29
Quoted from Mozart's Requiem: Historical and Analytical Studies, Documents, Score by Christoph Wolff, p.138.
https://books.google.com/books?id=ZjFqJy1bE-sC&pg=PA138

7
Joseph Haydn:
 The Seven Last Words of Christ:30 (from Haydn’s letter to his London publisher
dated April 8, 1787:)
“An entire new work, consisting of purely instrumental music, divided into
seven sonatas, of which each sonata lasts from seven to eight minutes,
together with an introduction, and at the end a terremoto or earthquake [...]
The Whole work lasts somewhat more than an hour.”31
 The Creation:32

33

- “two hours” (duration of the première on April 29 or 30 1798, as reported by

Giuseppe Carpani [1751 - 1828])34
- “both Süssmayr’s “Der Retter in Gefahr” on September 19, 1796, and Haydn’s
Die Schöpfung on December 26, 1802, were advertised as lasting from 12:00
to 2:00 P.M.”35
 The Seasons:36 “the initial performance [...] lasted about three hours” (1801)37
 The London Symphonies taking “nearly twenty-five minutes”:38

30
Most modern recordings usually last between 1 hour and 1 hour and 10 minutes.
31
Quoted from Mozart, Haydn and Early Beethoven: 1781-1802: 1781–1802 by Daniel Heartz, p.342.
https://books.google.com/books?id=0wp2CQAAQBAJ&pg=PA342
32
Most modern recordings last between 1 hour and 40 minutes (Gardiner) to 2 hours.
33
Quoted from Choral Monuments: Studies of Eleven Choral Masterworks by Dennis Shrock, p.175.
https://books.google.com/books?id=ZTElDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA175; see also Heartz p.585.
34
Mozart, Haydn and Early Beethoven, 1781-1802 by Daniel Heartz, p.589. The Italian source is at
https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_Kx4Uk07LwBsC/page/n189
35
Concert Life in Haydn’s Vienna by Mary Sue Morrow, p.147.
36
Modern recordings of the piece can take between 2 hours & 16 min. (Gardiner) and 2 hours & 24 min. (Beecham).
37
Heartz, p.630. https://books.google.com/books?id=0wp2CQAAQBAJ&pg=PA630
38
The Quarterly Musical Magazine and Review vol.8, 1826.
https://books.google.com/books?id=au82AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA306

8
  Te Deum:39 “lasted for about fifteen minutes” (1812)40

 A description from 1802 of a Viennese theater orchestra:

“In the many performances of Die Zauberflöte this very orchestra has not yet
once performed the overture without error. The articulation of the bass strings
is continually lost through the exaggerated rapidity of the tempo. Instead of the
precisely calculated effect of regular syncopation, the whole thing was like a
comic horse race where one almost fell over the other.”41
 Estimate of concert lengths in Vienna from around 1804:42

39
Most modern recordings last around 8 minutes.
40
Baierische National-Zeitung, 1812, p.1027.
41
Quoted from The Orchestra in Beethoven’s Vienna by Clive Brown, p.171 (in Classical and Romantic Music edited
by David Milsom). https://books.google.com/books?id=yCgxDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT231
42
Quoted from Concert Life in Haydn’s Vienna by Mary Sue Morrow, p.147.

9
 “An opera together with a ballet should last no more than 3 hours; a concerto 15
minutes; and a symphony no more than half an hour.” (AMZ 1811, p.325)43

 Mozart’s Fantasia in F minor K.608:44 “9 minutes in duration” (AMZ 1799, p.877)

 Mozart’s Splendente te, Deus K.Anh.121: “7 minutes” (AMZ 1805, p.163)
 Vincenzo Righini’s Te Deum: “half an hour” (AMZ 1810, p.425)
 Salieri’s Variations on ‘La Folia di Spagna’ :45 “15 minutes” (1815)46
 Handel’s Messiah:47 2 and a half hours (“So dauert das Ganze einige Minuten
über dritthalb Stunden”)—including intermissions (AMZ 1817, p.365)48
 Purcell’s O give thanks unto the Lord:49 “about ten minutes” (1825)50
 Weber’s Der Freischütz: the Wolf’s Glen scene taking “quarter of an hour” (1825
Covent Garden production).51
 Hummel’s Sonata No. 5 in F-Sharp Minor, Op. 81:52 “9 minutes for the last
movement, in no way a rushed tempo” (AMZ 1828, p.447)53

43
https://books.google.com/books?id=ZBVDAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA325
44
Modern recordings of the pieces usually take around 9-10 minutes.
45
Modern recordings take around 17-20 minutes.
46
The duration appears on the first page of Salieri’s autograph score which is available at
https://imslp.org/wiki/26_Variations_on_'La_folia_di_Spagna'_(Salieri%2C_Antonio); see also p.10 of
https://www.academia.edu/7023803/_La_folia_in_Late_Eighteenth-_and_Early_Nineteenth-Century_Vienna
47
The timing is identical to Trevor Pinnock’s HIP recording on Archive.
48
See the original article for a complete list of the numbers performed:
https://books.google.com/books?id=HcQ2AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA363
49
Modern recordings are around 10 minutes.
50
The Harmonicon vol.3, 1825, p.186. https://books.google.com/books?id=a8IJAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA186 The author
also notes that “Not many anthems exceed a dozen minutes in duration; many are much less” (ibid).
51
The Harmonicon vol.3, p.224.
52
According to Hummel’s metronome indications, the last movement of the sonata should take about 7 minutes in
performance.
53
https://books.google.com/books?id=fRNDAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA447

10
 Moscheles’s Piano Concerto no.1 in F Major:54 “took twenty minutes” [in a
performance by the composer] (1823)55 56

 Length of symphonies: “on an average, occupy nearly half an hour in

performance.” (the program of the concert included Beethoven’s 2nd and
Mozart’s Jupiter.) (1831)57
 Donizetti’s Vivi tu, te ne scongiuro (Anna Bolena): “four minutes” (1834)58
 Louis Spohr’s (1784 – 1859) Symphony No.4 in F Major, Op.86:59
- “fifty minutes” (1834)60
- “three quarters of an hour” (1851)61

54
According to the composer’s MMs, the piece should take approximately 19.5 minutes.
55
The Repository of Arts, Literature, Fashions, Manufactures, &c vol.1, 1823, p.365.
https://books.google.com/books?id=jeoRAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA365
56
The edition cited by the review could be downloaded from-
https://imslp.org/wiki/Piano_Concerto_No.1%2C_Op.45_(Moscheles%2C_Ignaz)
57
The Harmonicon vol.9, 1831, p.98. https://books.google.com/books?id=26ymWe8Ban8C&pg=PA98
58
Supplement to the Musical Library, 1834, p.104.
59
Based on Spohr’s MMs, the symphony should take around 40 minutes.
60
Supplement to the Musical Library, 1834, p.20.

11
Opera playbills (note: all hours are in PM time)

Mozart
 Die Entführung aus dem Serail: (2.5-3 hours)
- Dessau 1807: 6:00 – 8:3062
- Frankfurt 1810: 6:00 – 9:0063
- Munich 1811: 6:00 – 8:3064
- Weimar 1817: 6:00 – 8:3065
 Le nozze di Figaro: (3 hours)
- Munich 1806: 6:00 – 9:0066
- Frankfurt 1812: 6:00 – 9:0067
- Weimar 1823: 6:00 – 9:0068
 Don Giovanni: (3 hours)
- Weimar 1807: 6:00 – 9:0069
- Frankfurt 1810: 6:00 – 9:0070
- Munich 1811: 6:00 – 9:0071
 Cosi fan Tutte: (2.5 hours)
- Munich 1812: 6:00 – 8:3072
- Weimar 1818: 6:00 – 8:3073
 La clemenza di Tito: (2.5-3 hours)
- Weimar 1807: 6:00 – 8:3074
- Frankfurt 1808: 6:30 – 9:0075
- Munich 1812: 6:00 – 9:0076

61
The Musical World vol.29, 1851 p.733.
62
https://st.museum-digital.de/index.php?t=objekt&oges=2686
63
https://books.google.com/books?id=1WhLAAAAcAAJ&pg=RA5-PA3
64
https://books.google.com/books?id=g7pDAAAAcAAJ&pg=PP137
65
https://archive.thulb.uni-jena.de/staatsarchive/rsc/viewer/ThHStAW_derivate_00038948/004127.tif
66
https://books.google.com/books?id=gbpDAAAAcAAJ&pg=PP37
67
https://books.google.com/books?id=3mhLAAAAcAAJ&pg=PT46
68
https://archive.thulb.uni-jena.de/staatsarchive/rsc/viewer/ThHStAW_derivate_00036904/004907.tif
69
https://archive.thulb.uni-jena.de/staatsarchive/rsc/viewer/ThHStAW_derivate_00045648/002785.tif
70
https://books.google.com/books?id=1WhLAAAAcAAJ&pg=RA2-PA9
71
https://books.google.com/books?id=g7pDAAAAcAAJ&pg=PP37
72
https://books.google.com/books?id=h7pDAAAAcAAJ&pg=PP167
73
https://archive.thulb.uni-jena.de/staatsarchive/rsc/viewer/ThHStAW_derivate_00038697/004226.tif
74
https://archive.thulb.uni-jena.de/staatsarchive/rsc/viewer/ThHStAW_derivate_00045730/002756.tif
75
https://books.google.com/books?id=zWhLAAAAcAAJ&pg=PP19
76
https://books.google.com/books?id=h7pDAAAAcAAJ&pg=PP35

12
 - Frankfurt 1817: 6:00 – 9:0077
 Die Zauberflöte: (3 hours)
- Weimar 1807: 6:00 – 9:0078
- Stuttgart 1809: 5:00 – 8:0079
- Frankfurt 1810: 6:00 – 9:0080
Gluck
 Iphigénie en Tauride: (2.5-3 hours)
- Frankfurt 1810: 6:00 – 8:3081
- Weimar 1818: 6:00 – 9:0082
 Iphigénie en Aulide: (2.5 hours)
- Weimar 1821: 6:00 – 8:3083
Weber
 Der Freischütz: (2.5-3 hours)
- Berlin June 18th 1821: 6:00 – 9:00 (premiere conducted by the
composer)84
- Berlin 1822: 6:00 – 8:3085
- Weimar 1822: 6:00 – 8:3086
 Oberon: (3 hours)
- Weimar 1828: 6:00 – 9:0087
- Munich 1829: 6:30 – 9:3088
Bellini
- I Capuleti e i Montecchi: Munich 1834: 6:30 – 9:00 (2.5 hours)89
- Il pirata: Munich 1834: 6:30 – 9:00 (2.5 hours)90

77
https://books.google.com/books?id=RGRLAAAAcAAJ&pg=PP119
78
https://archive.thulb.uni-jena.de/staatsarchive/rsc/viewer/ThHStAW_derivate_00045617/002797.tif
79
https://books.google.com/books?id=6GVLAAAAcAAJ&pg=PP181
80
https://books.google.com/books?id=1WhLAAAAcAAJ&pg=RA1-PA5
81
https://books.google.com/books?id=1WhLAAAAcAAJ&pg=RA3-PA10
82
https://archive.thulb.uni-jena.de/staatsarchive/rsc/viewer/ThHStAW_derivate_00038660/004245.tif
83
https://archive.thulb.uni-jena.de/staatsarchive/rsc/viewer/ThHStAW_derivate_00037682/004613.tif
84
https://c7.alamy.com/comp/B40NHP/weber-carl-maria-von-18111786-561826-german-composer-opera-der-
freischuetz-B40NHP.jpg
85
http://www.deutschefotothek.de/documents/obj/80932710/df_hauptkatalog_0751249
86
https://archive.thulb.uni-jena.de/staatsarchive/rsc/viewer/ThHStAW_derivate_00037257/004799.tif
87
https://archive.thulb.uni-jena.de/staatsarchive/rsc/viewer/ThHStAW_derivate_00033409/005569.tif
88
https://books.google.com/books?id=xylDAAAAcAAJ&pg=PP381
89
https://books.google.com/books?id=T81DAAAAcAAJ&pg=PP169
90
https://books.google.com/books?id=hSpDAAAAcAAJ&pg=PP45

13
Ludwig van Beethoven:
 The Eroica Symphony (no.3):
- “lasts an entire hour” (conducted by the composer) (AMZ 1805,
p.501)
- “nearly hour-long” (AMZ 1807, p.497)
- “fifty minutes” (AMZ 1811, p.66)
- “three quarters of an hour” (1823, Conducted by J. Cramer)91
- “full three quarters of an hour” (1824, Conducted by J. Cramer)92
- “three quarters of an hour” (1829)93
- “lasted 46 minutes” (1829)94
- “forty minutes” (1837)95
- “lasts almost an hour” (1839)96
 The Pastoral Symphony (no.6):
- “the andante alone is upwards of a quarter of an hour” (1823)97
- “lasts nearly three quarters of an hour” (1824)98
- “spun out to upwards of three-quarters of an hour” (1826)99
- “forty minutes”; “a slow movement a quarter of an hour long”
(1828)100
 7th Symphony:
- “at least fifty minutes” (1823)101
- “It consists of four movements, each of which lasts almost a quarter
hour adding up to a total duration of at least three quarters of an hour”
(1828)102

91
The Harmonicon vol.2, 1823, p.53.
92
The Quarterly Musical Magazine and Review vol.VI, 1824, p.68.
93
The Harmonicon 1829, p.92.
94
The Athenaeum, 1829, p.172
95
The Musical World vol.5, 1837, p.185.
96
Allgemeiner musikalischer Anzeiger vol.11, 1839, p.136.
97
The Harmonicon vol.1, 1823, p.86.
98
Wiener allgemeine musikalische Zeitung vol.8, 1824, p.98.
99
The Harmonicon vol. 4, 1826, p.106.
100
The Harmonicon vol. 6, 1828, p.137.
101
The Harmonicon vol.1, 1829, p.101.
102
Allgemeine Musikzeitung zur Beförderung vol.2, 1828, p.21.

14
  9th Symphony:
- “it lasted an hour and five minutes” (1825 conducted by Sir George
Smart)103
- “precisely one hour and five minutes” (1825 conducted by Sir George
Smart)104
- “about seventy minutes” (1825)105
- “cannot be much less than an hour and twenty minutes” (based on a
calculation by an English critic) (1825)106
- “1 & ¼ of an hour” (1826)107
- “more than an hour” (1838, conducted by Moscheles in London)108
- “an hour and twenty minutes” (1841 Philharmonic concert in
London)109
 According to Sir George Smart (1776 - 1867), Beethoven had told him in 1825
that the 9th symphony took “three-quarters of an hour only in performance”.110

103
The Quarterly Musical Magazine and Review vol.7, 1825, p.202. (see Smart’s timing below of the same concert)
104
The Harmonicon vol.3, 1825, p.69.
105
The London Literary Gazette 1825, p.204.
106
The Harmonicon 1825, p.48.
107
Berliner allgemeine musikalische Zeitung vol.3, 1826, p.399.
108
Allgemeiner musikalischer Anzeiger, vol.10 1838, p.126.
109
The Foreign quarterly review vol.XXVI, 1841, p.221
110
Leaves from the Journals of Sir George Smart (1907 ed.), p.123.
https://archive.org/details/leavesfromjourn01coxgoog/page/n141
According to Thayer, Smart wrote the following in one of Beethoven’s conversation books: “Karl.—He would like to
know the tempi of the finale of the last symphony. Haven’t you it here?—How long you worked on the symphony?—
How long does it last?—1 hour and 3 minutes—¾ hour” (Life of Beethoven vol.3, p.209).
https://books.google.co.il/books?id=4fooDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA209

15
 Quartet no.15 Op.132: Smart also heard a performance of the Quartet Op.132 by
the Schuppanzigh Quartet in Beethoven’s presence, which he reported to last
“three-quarters of an hour long”.111

 Fidelio:112 2 - 2.5 hours

- Weimar 1817: 6:00 – 8:00113
- Munich 1821: 6:00 – 8:30114
- Munich 1826: 6:30 – 8:30115
- Bonn 1830: 6:30-9:00 116

111
Leaves from the Journals of Sir George Smart (1907 ed.), p.109.
https://archive.org/details/leavesfromjourn01coxgoog/page/n126
112
Most modern productions take around 2 hours & 20 minutes.
113
https://archive.thulb.uni-jena.de/staatsarchive/rsc/viewer/ThHStAW_derivate_00038974/004102.tif
114
https://c7.alamy.com/comp/KD6KFW/fidelio-announcement-27th-july-1821-performance-at-neues-konigliche-
KD6KFW.jpg
115
https://books.google.com/books?id=wRZDAAAAcAAJ&pg=PP83
116
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fidelio.jpg

16
17
 Christus am Ölberge:117
- “The duration of the entire work can at most be stretched out to three
quarters of an hour.” (AMZ 1812)
- “only 1 hour and 9 minutes” (Beethoven’s September 24 1815 letter to
Baron Treitschke)118
 Wellington’s Victory: “6 to 7 minutes” for the second part (“Victory”) (1816)119
 Missa Solemnis:
- “performed in an hour and twenty minutes” (Bonn, 1845)120
- the Kyrie and Gloria together “3/4 of an hour” (AMZ 1834, p.263)121
 From a review of the second performance of the 9th symphony (May 23, 1824 -
which has been personally supervised by Beethoven):122

117
Typical modern recordings of the piece take around 45-50 minutes.
118
Beethoven's Letters 2014 ed. (Alfred Christlieb Kalischer ed.), p.377.
https://books.google.com/books?id=W8KZBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA377
119
Hamburgisches Morgenblatt, 1816, p.832; see also Caecilia, vol.3, 1825, p.169.
120
Leaves from the Journals of Sir George Smart (1907 ed.), p.295.
https://archive.org/details/leavesfromjourn01coxgoog/page/n316
121
The timing is significantly slower than modern recordings. The two movements take on Gardiner’s recording 25
minutes, and half an hour on Giulini’s.
122
Quoted from Beethoven: The Ninth Symphony by David Benjamin Levy, pp.140-1.

18
 Schubert’s 9th Symphony in C Major:
- “five minutes short of an hour” (AMZ, 1839, p.256)
- “if played with the repeats indicated, it occupies very nearly an hour.”
(1865) [according to George Grove (1820-1900)]123
- “nearly an hour” (1873)124
- “omitting the repeats, a performance of it lasts just forty-eight minutes”
(1875)125

123
The Life of Franz Schubert vol.2 (1869 ed.), p.319. https://archive.org/details/lifefranzschube01grovgoog/page/n332
124
Dwight’s Journal of Music vol.33-34, 1873, p.135.
125
The Monthly musical record, vol.5 1875, p.14.

19
 The English conductor Sir George Smart exactly timed many of the pieces which
he conducted:126

* April 1837 concert

conducted by Moscheles
See Ignaz Moscheles and the
Changing World of Musical Europe
by Mark Kroll, p.224.

126
All the tables are taken from Tempo and Repeats in the Early Nineteenth Century by Nicholas Temperley (1966).

20
 * April 1837 concert
conducted by Moscheles

21
Smart’s annotated program for the 1825 English premier of Beethoven’s 9th 127

“begin 22 m past 10”

“over 26 m past 11”
=
“1h & 4 m”

127
The program is taken from https://www.bl.uk/eblj/2010articles/pdf/ebljarticle42010.pdf

22
23
Luigi Cherubini [1760–1842]:
 Requiem in C minor (1816): 36.5 minutes [Timings from the composer’s
autograph score]:128

[Manuscript timings] Metronome calculation

(minutes)

5:35

1:10

4:36

5:34

5:38

total: 21 (16 without repeat)

1:23

2:47

5:48

Total length:
47 (42 without repeat)

128
Table is taken from Analytische Anmerkungen zu Luigi Cherubinis Messe der Requiem c-Moll by Herbert
Schneider, pp.368-9 (in Finsché non splende in ciel notturna face (Cesare Fertonani et al. Ed.))
www.ledonline.it/CantarSottile/allegati/studi-degrada.pdf ; see also the urtext edition from Carus Verlag:
https://www.carus-verlag.com/index.php?stoken=4447B5DC&lang=1&cl=search&searchparam=luigi+cherubini

24
 Cherubini’s timings of other vocal works:129

Manuscript Metronome
Year Piece timing timing

1816 Ave Maria 5 4.5

1816 Ecce panis angelorum 5 3.8
1816 O salutaris hostia in E-flat major 5.5 5.3
1816 Kyrie et Pater noster 16 15.5
- Pater noster 5 4:55
1817 Tantum Ergo in A minor 4.5 3
1817 Iste die observabilis est Domini 16¼ 15.2
1818 Regina Caeli 5 4.8
1818 Alleluia O filii et filiae 12 11.5
1820 Domine Dominus noster 7.5 7.4
1820 In paradisum deducant te angeli (no repeat) 7 6.2
- (with repeat) 9.5 7.8
1821 O salutaris hostia in D major 3.5 3.2
1824 Adoremus in aeternum 4 4
1824 Adjutor et susceptor meus 4.5 4.2
1826 O salutaris hostia in B-flat major 4.5 4.5
1827 O salutaris hostia No.2 in G major 4 4
1829 Esto mihi in Deum protectorem 15/16.5 14.4

 Lodoïska: 2.5-3 hours

- Frankfurt 1810: 6:00 – 9:00130
- Weimar 1835: 6:00 – 8:30131

129
All timings are taken from Cherubini’s autograph scores, found on the composer’s IMSLP page:
https://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Cherubini,_Luigi
130
https://books.google.com/books?id=1WhLAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA7
131
https://archive.thulb.uni-jena.de/staatsarchive/rsc/viewer/ThHStAW_derivate_00029519/006659.tif

25
Felix Mendelssohn:
 Elijah:132
- 2 hours: “As the morning performances are to last three hours, the “Elijah,”
which according to my calculation takes two hours, will not be enough by
itself.” (Mendelssohn’s letter to Moscheles from July 28, 1846.)133
- The premiere lasted “two hours and a half”, including encores of four
choruses and four arias. (a letter to Mendelssohn’s brother Paul from August
26, 1846)134
 Paulus:135
- “the recitative of Stephen [no.6 “Lieben Brüder und Väter...”], though the
words are long, will not occupy more than two or three minutes, or—
including all the choruses—till his death, about a quarter of an hour [nos. 6-
9]” (Mendelssohn’s letter to Rebecca Dirichlet, December 23, 1834).136 137
- “2.5 hours” (1838)138
 “there are still three or four totally unknown and truly admirable oratorios of
[Handel] which would not occupy more than an hour and a half, or scarcely two
hours at most” (Mendelssohn’s letter from January 18, 1838)139
 Bach’s BWV 11:140 “about twenty minutes or half an hour in length”141 142
 Cherubini’s Requiem:143 “an hour, or even less” (Mendelssohn’s letter from
January 18, 1838)144
 Symphony No.2 ‘Lobgesang’: “Its first part145 is an instrumental symphony, which
occupies half an hour in the performance” (1844)146

132
Typical modern recordings of the piece take around two hours, sometimes a bit more.
133
Letters of Felix Mendelssohn to Ignaz and Charlotte Moscheles, p.277.
https://archive.org/details/lettersfelixmen00moscgoog/page/n346
134
Letters of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy from 1833 to 1847, pp.402-3.
https://archive.org/details/lettersoffelixm00mend/page/402
135
Typical modern recordings of the piece take around two hours, sometimes a bit more.
136
Letters of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy from 1833 to 1847, p.67.
https://archive.org/details/lettersoffelixm00mend/page/67
137
On Philippe Herreweghe’s recording of Paulus, the recitative takes 3.5 minutes and the whole scene around 12
minutes.
138
Allgemeiner musikalischer Anzeiger vol.10, 1838, p.146.
139
Letters of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy from 1833 to 1847, p.147.
https://archive.org/details/lettersoffelixm00mend/page/147
140
Most modern recordings of the piece take around 25-30 minutes.
141
Ibid.
142
Bach’s piece is identified in the following book https://books.google.com/books?id=AOmXt2vLe94C&pg=PA15
143
Most modern recordings of the piece take around 40-50 minutes.
144
Ibid.

26
Franz Berwald [1796 – 1868]147

Manuscript Modern
Year Work Järvi
timings recordings
1842 Symphony No.1 34 29:55 33 (Blomstedt)
1. Allegro con energia 12.5 10:32 11:30
2. Adagio maestoso 7.5 6:21 8:16
3. Stretto 5 5:27 5:37
4. Finale: Adagio - Allegro molto 8 7:35 7:41
1842 Symphony No.2 (29.5) 27:33 31:36 (Kamu)
1. Allegro 12 10:32 11:49
2. Andante 8 6:57 8:41
3. Finale: Allegro assai 9.5 10:04 11:06
1845 Symphony No.3 29-30 27:05 30:41 (Bolton)
1. Allegro fuocoso 11 10:29 12:05
2. Adagio 10 8:24 9:33
3. Finale: Presto 8 8:12 9:03
1845 Symphony No.4 32 25:19 29:44 (Blomstedt)
1. Allegro risoluto 10 7:56 9:01
2. Adagio 9.5 5:41 8:30
3. Scherzo: Allegro molto 5 5:28 5:40
4. Finale: Allegro vivace 7 6:14 6:33

Robert Schumann:
 Symphony No.3 ‘Rhenish’: 28 minutes (5 minutes for the 2nd movement)148

145
The first part of the symphony usually takes about half an hour on modern recordings.
146
Annual report of the Sacred Harmonic Society, 1844, pp.39-40.
147
The timings are found in Berwald’s autograph scores, and are included in the urtext editions of the symphonies by
Bärenreiter, see - https://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Berwald,_Franz
148
Quoted from the urtext edition by Breitkopf & Härtel, footnote 29.
https://issuu.com/breitkopf/docs/pb_5337_issuu?e=23479955/65488622

27
 Szenen aus Goethes Faust: “an hour at the most” (for Parts I & III)
“the Garden Scene and the Cathedral Scene with the Dies Irae are finished,
and the whole thing (with the final scene of Part II [viz. Goethe's Part II,
Schumann's Part III]) would last an hour at the most” (letter to Liszt from
July 21, 1849)149
 Der Königssohn:150 “28 minutes” (from a July 23, 1853 letter by Schumann to
Johannes Verhulst)151
 Das Paradies und die Peri: “including intermission, 2 hours and few minutes”
(from a September 10, 1853 letter by Schumann to Carl Friedrich
Rungenhagen)152

Hector Berlioz:153
 La révolution Grecque, scène héroïque:154 “does not last more than 15 or 20
minutes” (from a January 15, 1826 letter by Berlioz)155

[timings calculated
according to Berlioz’s
MMs]

149
Quoted from The choral works of Robert Schumann (1810-56) by Maxine Elizabeth Mott, pp.210-11. For the
original German, see - https://sbd.schumann-portal.de/briefe.html?show=940&PSI=1455
150
Modern recordings of the piece take between 25-30 minutes.
151
https://archive.org/details/diemusik08gergoog/page/n155
152
https://sbd.schumann-portal.de/briefe.html?FORMACTION=searching&per_page=500&show=1637
153
The table is taken from Berlioz and the Metronome by Hugh MacDonald (published in Berlioz Studies by Peter
Bloom (ed.)), pp.31-32. https://books.google.com/books?id=9IMLGQeTmDoC&pg=PA32
154
According to Berlioz’s metronome indications, the piece should take around 22 minutes.
155
Berlioz: Volume One: The Making of an Artist, 1803-1832 by David Cairns, p. 189.
https://books.google.com/books?id=R5-bb7tz_4MC&pg=PA189

28
 Les Troyens:156 3 hours and 26 minutes157

 Te Deum:158 “three quarters of an hour” (an 1856 letter by Berlioz to Hans von
Bülow)159
 L’enfance du Christ:160 “an hour and a half” (Berlioz’s letter to von Bülow from
July 28, 1854)161

 Roméo et Juliette: “half an hour”162 for the finale163

 Beethoven’s 9th symphony, Adagio: “takes almost 18 minutes” (1838 article by
Berlioz)164

156
A typical modern performance of the opera takes around 4 hours, often more.
157
Ibid, see the next page.
158
According to the composer’s MMs the piece is around 50 minutes.
159
http://www.hberlioz.com/Germany/berlin.htm
160
Most modern recordings of the piece take about an hour and a half.
161
The early correspondence of Hans von Bülow, 1896 ed. p.204.
https://archive.org/details/earlycorresponde00buloiala/page/204
162
Berlioz’s MMs give around 16.5 minutes, considering ritenuti and fermatas it is possible to obtain 17-18 minutes. It
is probable that Berlioz meant the whole third part. See the table above for a more accurate timing of the finale which
fits Berlioz’s metronome indications.
163
The memoirs of Hector Berlioz (1969 ed.), p.298. http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26370
164
Revue et gazette musicale de Paris vol.5, 1838, p.161.

29
Richard Wagner:
 Tannhauser Overture: 165 “the overture to “Tannhauser,” which, when I
conducted it at Dresden, used to last twelve minutes”166
 Das Rheingold:167 “the music, (it was reported) lasted exactly two hours and a
half at rehearsals under a conductor whom I had personally instructed”.168
 Lohengrin:169 “from six o’clock to a quarter to ten” (from a letter by Wagner to
Liszt September 8, 1850):170

 Wagner on Mendelssohn’s conducting:

“Robert Schumann once complained to me at Dresden that he could not enjoy
the Ninth Symphony at the Leipzig Gewandhaus concerts because of the quick
tempi Mendelssohn chose to take, particularly in the first movement. I have,
myself, only once been present at a rehearsal of one of Beethoven's Symphonies,
when Mendelssohn conducted [...] Mendelssohn himself once remarked to me,
with regard to conducting, that he thought most harm was done by taking a

165
According to Wagner’s own MMs, the piece should take about 12-15 minutes.
166
On conducting: (Ueber das dirigiren) by Wagner (1897 ed.), p.21.
https://archive.org/details/onconductinguebe00wagn/page/n31
167
Modern productions of the opera are usually around 2 hours and 25 minutes in length.
168
Ibid.
169
Modern productions of the opera are usually between 3 hours and 30-40 minutes.
170
Correspondence Of Wagner And Liszt, vo.1, p.89. https://archive.org/details/correspondenceof01wagn/page/89

30
 tempo too slow; and that on the contrary, he always recommended quick tempi
as being less detrimental.”171

Franz Liszt:
 Beethoven’s op.97 trio (“Archduke”):172 45 minutes in a performance by Liszt,
Chrétien Urhan (violin) and Alexandre Batta (cello) (1837 concert)173
 Beethoven’s 8th symphony:174 “25 minutes” (from a letter by Liszt to Richard Pohl
from November 7, 1868):175

 Dante Symphony:176
- “It takes a little less than an hour in performance” (Liszt’s letter to
Wagner, July 1856);177
- “will take pretty nearly an hour in performance” (Liszt’s letter to Louis
Kohler, July 9, 1856).178
 Missa Solennis S.9:179 “45-50 minutes” (“with the watch in my hand”) (letter by
Liszt to Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein from September 1856)180
 Hungarian Coronation Mass S.11: “25 minutes” (excluding the graduale and
offertorium)181

171
On conducting: (Ueber das dirigiren) by Wagner (1897 ed.), p.22.
https://archive.org/details/onconductinguebe00wagn/page/n34
172
According to Czerny’s and Moscheles’ MMs, the piece should take around 38.5-40 minutes (including all the
repeats).
173
Revue et gazette musicale de Paris vol.4, 1837, p.82. The reviewer comments on the exceptional length of the piece
for its time. https://books.google.com/books?id=ar5CAAAAcAAJ&pg=PP93
174
Gardiner’s recording is around 24 minutes.
175
Quoted from Franz Liszt to Richard Pohl by Edward N. Waters, p.199.
176
Modern recordings of the piece typically take around 50 minutes.
177
Correspondence Of Wagner And Liszt, vol.2, p.155. https://archive.org/details/correspondenceof02wagn/page/155
178
Letters of Franz Liszt, vol.1, p.272. https://archive.org/details/lettersoffranzli01lisz/page/272
179
Modern recordings of the piece take between 50 minutes and 1 hour.
180
Franz Liszts Briefe vol.4, letter 236. https://archive.org/details/LisztBriefe4/page/n351
181
Franz Liszt by August Göllerich (1908 ed.), p.169. https://archive.org/details/franzliszt00glle/page/169

31
 13th psalm S.13:182 “twenty-five minutes”183 (letter by Liszt to Franz Brendel,
March or April 1860).184
 Die Seligkeiten S.25:185
- “between 5-8 minutes” (with cuts—see the original letter) (letter by Liszt
to Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein, April 22, 1859)186
- “ten minutes” (letter by Liszt to Franz Brendel, March or April 1860).187
 Christus:188 “takes about three hours to perform” (letter by Liszt to Franz
Brendel, October 2, 1866).189
 Legend of Saint Elizabeth:190
- “200 pages of score—2 and ½ hours’ duration in performance” (letter by
Liszt to Eduard Liszt, November 19, 1862).191
- “lasts about three hours, including the intervals” (letter by Liszt to Franz
Brendel, September 28, 1865)192
 Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata: “almost an hour” (letter by Liszt to Carolyne
Sayn-Wittgenstein, October 26, 1876)193
 Totentanz:194 “20 minutes” (letter by Liszt to Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein, May
1881)195
 Nun danket alle Gott S.61:196 “10 minutes” (letter by Liszt to Carolyne Sayn-
Wittgenstein, November 17, 1883)197
 Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini:198 2 hours (7PM – past 9PM), including the Roman
Carnival Overture (November 17, 1852 performance conducted by Liszt)199

182
Modern recordings of the piece usually take around 20 minutes.
183
Ibid.
184
Letters of Franz Liszt, vol.1, p.430. https://archive.org/details/lettersoffranzli01lisz/page/430
185
Most modern recordings last between 8 and 11 minutes.
186
Franz Liszts Briefe vol.4, letter 332. https://archive.org/details/LisztBriefe4/page/n483
187
Letters of Franz Liszt, vol.1, p.430. https://archive.org/details/lettersoffranzli01lisz/page/430
188
Most modern recordings of the piece take around 3 hours.
189
Letters of Franz Liszt, vol.2, p.116. https://archive.org/details/lettersoffranzli02lisz/page/116
190
Modern recordings of the piece take around 1 hour and 20 minutes.
191
Letters of Franz Liszt, vol.2, p.39. https://archive.org/details/lettersoffranzli02lisz/page/39
192
Letters of Franz Liszt, vol.2, p.107. https://archive.org/details/lettersoffranzli02lisz/page/107
193
Franz Liszts Briefe vol.7, letter 161. https://archive.org/details/LisztBriefe7/page/n165
194
Most modern recordings of the piece take around 15 minutes.
195
Franz Liszts Briefe vol.7, letter 319. https://archive.org/details/LisztBriefe7/page/n321
196
According to Liszt’s MMs, the piece should take around 7 minutes.
197
Franz Liszts Briefe vol.7, letter 373. https://archive.org/details/LisztBriefe7/page/n381
198
Modern recordings of the opera typically take between 2.5 and 3 hours.
199
https://archive.thulb.uni-jena.de/staatsarchive/rsc/viewer/ThHStAW_derivate_00044899/009095.tif

32
 Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice (Paris version): two hours (7PM - 9PM) (February 16,
1854 performance conducted by Liszt)200
 Schubert’s Alfonso und Estrella:201 3 hours (6:30 PM - 9:30 PM) (June 24 1854
performance Conducted by Liszt):202
 Venezia e Napoli:203 “This piece lasts seventeen minutes, and has no pause
between the movements.” (from an 1870 concert program of Walter Bache
(1842 - 1888)—one of Liszt’s close pupils)204
 “As I entered Liszt’s salon, Urspruch [Anton Urspruch (1850 - 1907) a student of
Liszt’s] was performing Schumann’s Symphonic Etuden205 — an immense
composition, and one that it took at least half an hour to get through.”206

200
The poster (next page) taken from Liszt and the Symphonic Poem by Joanne Cormac, p.192.
https://books.google.com/books?id=Fi02DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA192
201
The uncut opera takes around 3 hours in modern recordings.
202
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:A%26E_Weimar.jpg
203
Modern recordings typically last about 16 minutes.
204
Reflections on Liszt By Alan Walker, p.119. https://books.google.com/books?id=4URhKNWu0XQC&pg=PA119
205
Most modern recordings of the piece usually take a little over half an hour.
206
Quoted from From a Young Lady’s Letters Home Weimar, May 1, 1873, printed in The Atlantic Montly vol. xxxiii,
p.419. https://books.google.com/books?id=vn5hAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA419

33
34
35
Johannes Brahms:
 The symphonies: (timings by conductor von Bulow, among others)207

 Symphony no.1 in C Minor: “forty-three minutes” and “sixteen minutes” for

the finale (conducted by Brahms)208

207
The table is taken from Tempos and Proportions in Brahms: Period Evidence by Bernard D. Sherman, pp.466-7.
See also Performing Brahms - Early Evidence of Performance Style, ch.4.
208
The Monthly Musical Record, Volume vol.7, 1877, p.82.
https://books.google.com/books?id=lIe0BRIWGKkC&pg=PA82

36
  Ein deutsches Requiem:209
- 1¼ hours [67 minutes, all movements calculated], according to an 1869
review by Adolf Schubring in AMZ:210 211

- 60-65 minutes (timings recorded in an annotated score used in the 1868

Bremen premiere (conducted by Brahms), thus possibly by Brahms):212

 Piano Concerto no.1 in D minor: “45 minutes” (1878)213

209
According to Brahms’s MMs, the piece should take around 65 minutes.
210
(p.9) https://books.google.com/books?id=NU4fAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA9
211
Paragraph quoted from A Practical Guide for Performing, Teaching, and Singing the Brahms Requiem by Leonard
Van Camp, p.66. https://books.google.com/books?id=qy-N90o9MwUC&pg=PA66
212
The table is taken from Performing Brahms - Early Evidence of Performance Style (Michael Musgrave ed.), p.142.
213
Allgemeine Deutsche Musik-Zeitung vol.5, 1878, p.117.

37
  Serenade No.1, op.11: “fifty minutes” (conducted by Joachim?) (1873)214
 Liebeslieder Waltzes, op. 52: “requiring more than twenty minutes in
performance” (1877)215

Charles-Valentin Alkan [1813 – 1888]: timings measured by Alkan, added to his

concert programs:216
Alkan’s timing modern recordings

214
The Monthly musical record vol.3, 1873, p.37.
215
The Monthly musical record vol.7, 1877, p.30.
216
All the tables below are taken from LES PETITS CONCERTS DE CH.-V. ALKAN: PROGRAMMES, DURÉES ET
CONSÉQUENCES by Joris Lejeune, pp.12-14 (published in Bulletins de la Société Alkan, 2019). See the original
article for a reproduction of Alkan’s programs: http://www.alkansociety.org/Publications/Bulletins-de-la-Societe-
Alkan/FBulletin80.pdf

38
39
 From a review of Schubert’s Piano Sonata D.894, Op.78 performed by Alkan: “lasts
no less than half an hour”217

 Henri Vieuxtemps (1820 –1881): (reviews of concerts given by the composer)

- Violin Concerto No.1(?):218 “fifty-five minutes” (1841)219
- Violin Concerto (no.1 or no.3?): “three quarters of an hour” (1847)220
- Violin Concerto No.3 in A Major:221 “very nearly an hour in length”
(1847)222

217
Schubert’s Works in France by J. G. Prod’homme and Frederick H. Martens, p.510.
218
Based on the composer’s MMs, the concerto should take around 42 minutes.
219
The Musical World vol.15, 1841, p.266.
220
The Spectator vol.20, 1847, p.515.
221
Based on the composer’s MMs, the piece could take between 40 and 47 minutes (considering fermatas and ritenuti).
222
The Athenaeum, 1847, p.578.

40
 Louis James Alfred Lefébure-Wély (1817 – 1869) Meditaciones Religiosas
Op.122 (1858):223 224
Composer Timing by the
Movement
MMs Composer
1. Andante 2:22 2:30
2. Allegro 6:03 3:25
3. Cantabile 1:54 2:15
4. Marche 3:46 4:00
5. Andante 2:15 2:45
6. Moderato 3:00 3:15
7. Andante 2:10 2:40
8. Allegro 2:08 2:15
9. Maestoso 10:00 8:00
10a. Largo 1:20 1:00
10b. Andante 2:56 3:00

César Franck [1822 – 1890]:

 Prelude, Chorale and Fugue:225 “lasts 13 minutes”.226
 Psyché:227
- Le sommeil de Psyché: 6 min.
- Psyché enlevée par les zéphyrs: 2 min.
- Les jardins d'Eros: 4 min.
- Psyché et Eros: 6.5 min.
Total: 24 minutes.228
 Ruth:229 “about an hour and a half” (a letter by Franck to von Bulow, April
15, 1861)230

223
https://imslp.org/wiki/M%C3%A9ditations_religieuses%2C_Op.122_(Lef%C3%A9bure-
W%C3%A9ly%2C_Louis_James_Alfred)
224
The table is taken from Joris Verdin, Tempo en metronoom in de Franse muziek van de 19e eeuw, deel 3,
Orgelkunst, september 2015.
225
Modern recordings typically take between 17-19 minutes.
226
The Art of French Piano Music: Debussy, Ravel, Fauré, Chabrier by Roy Howat, p.261.
https://books.google.com/books?id=EGowDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT351
227
Modern recordings of the piece take between 20-25 minutes.
228
César Franck by Joël-Marie Fauquet, p.704.
229
A recording of the piece by Martin Barral takes 1 hour and 18 minutes.
230
César Franck: Correspondence by Joël-Marie Fauquet (ed.), p.70.
https://books.google.com/books?id=eKsUNpWbujUC&pg=PA70

41
 An 1848 article from the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik:231
“I have measured the length of several pieces, namely symphonies, quartets and
overtures, by well-known authors of the past and the present. I found the longest
movements in quartets and quintets for string instruments, and also pieces for the
piano. Here are my finds: a reasonable length for a first movement of a symphony or
a quartet is 6–8 minutes. But if the piece is extended by three minutes with the
exposition repeat, this extension is very disadvantageous for the effect of the piece.
If a first movement plays for ten minutes without a repeat, and for 13-14 minutes
with the repeat, it is advisable to omit it. 5-6 minutes is a sufficient length for an
Adagio or Andante. The effect of many beautiful Adagios is lost because of their
excessive length. For even a minute or two too long can be extremely detrimental. It
is particularly advisable not to extend a fast-paced finale for too long, because we
cannot endure fast and agitated tempi for a long stretch of time. The length of an
overture should be approximately the same as that of the first movement of a
symphony without repeats, namely 6-7 minutes.”

231
Neue Zeitschrift für Musik vol.26, 1847, p.33.
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015023329850&view=1up&seq=41&size=125

42
 Timings of Beethoven’s symphonies from orchestral parts used in concerts of the
Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire, Ca. 1828-1870’s:232
- 3rd Symphony: 45 minutes.
- 5th Symphony: 35 minutes (two timings).
- 4th Symphony: 1st mvt: 12 min. ; 2nd mvt: 8 min. ; 3rd mvt: 6 min.
- 7th Symphony: 40 minutes (3rd mvt. 8 minutes).
- 9th Symphony:
- 1st mvt: between 10 and 19 minutes (average 15).
- 2nd mvt: between 12.5 and 17 minutes (average 15).
- 3rd mvt: between 13 and 19.5 minutes. (average 15.5).
- Finale: 25-26 minutes.
- Total: 1h 7 min; 1h 15 min (with breaks); 1h 18 min; 1h 20 min
[1874]; 1h 25 min.

Movement Timing [minutes]233

1st 13 15 14 15 15-19 15 10-15
2nd 14 13 12.5 15 15 15 17
3rd 15 16.5 13 15 15 19.5
4th 25 25 25 26 26 26
Total 1h7 [1h8] [1h9] [~1h13] 1h20 1h18 1h25

 Franz Lachner’s Symphony No.6: “one hour” (1838)234

 Franz Lachner’s Symphony No.3 in D minor: “52 minutes” (AMZ 1845, p.914)
 Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony: “fifty-six and a half minutes” (1871 performance
conducted by Franz Lachner)235
 Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto No.5: “more than half an hour” (1848)236
 Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No.1, in G minor: “nearly twenty minutes”
(1853)237

232
Les "Symphonies" de Beethoven à la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire: Une étude des matériels d'orchestre du
XIXe siècle by Nicolas Southon, pp.135-6. The dates for most of the timings are uncertain, but some of them might go
back to Habeneck’s French premieres of Beethoven symphonies (1828-1831).
233
Ibid, pp.162-3.
234
Neue Zeitschrift für Musik vol.8, 1838, p.139.
235
Dwight’s Journal of Music, 1871, p.275.
236
The Musical World vol.XXV, 1849 p.783.
237
The Examiner, 1853, p.182.

43
 Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis: “occupies about an hour and twenty minutes”
(1854)238
 A review of an 1853 performance of Beethoven’s Hammerklavier sonata played
by Arabella Goddard (“there-quarters of an hour” for the sonata):239

 Beethoven’s Hammerkalvier sonata in von Bülow’s performance: “lasted more

than forty minutes” (1873)240
 Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations in von Bülow’s performance: “more than forty
minutes” (1874)241
 Schumann’s Symphony No.2: “three-quarters of an hour” (1864)242
 Józef Wieniawski’s (1837 – 1912) Violin Sonata Op.24:243 “fifty minutes” (1869)
(performed by the composer)244
 Mozart’s Symphony No. 26 K.184: “lasted just ten minutes” (1873)245

238
The Rambler, vol.2, 1854, p.79.
239
The Musical World vol.XXXI, 1853, p.256. https://books.google.com/books?id=sJQPAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA256
240
The Athenaeum 1873, p.737.
241
The Athenaeum 1874, p.615.
242
The Athenaeum 1864, p.781.
243
The duration of the work may vary, depending on the version being performed, see
https://imslp.org/wiki/Violin_Sonata%2C_Op.24_(Wieniawski%2C_J%C3%B3zef)
244
Signale für die musikalische Welt, 1869, p.329.
245
The Monthly musical record vol.3, 1873, p.11.

44
 Joachim Raff’s Symphony no.3 “Im Walde”, op.153: “lasts just fifty minutes” (1875
concert conducted by W.G. Cusins)246
 Anton Rubinstein’s Symphony No.4 Op.95: “took just fifty-eight minutes to
perform” (in an 1877 concert conducted by the composer)247
 Theodor Kullak (1818 – 1882) on tempi and older pianos:248
(Footnote to Chopin’s Etude Op.10, n.8 [edited by Kullak])

246
The Monthly musical record vol.5, 1875, p.73.
247
The Monthly musical record vol.7, 1877, p.111.
248
Frédéric Chopin: Klavierwerke (1880 ed.) p.25. https://archive.org/stream/imslp-chopin-klavierwerke-chopin-
frdric/SIBLEY1802.15816.8182-39087009897002vol._1#page/n25

45
Concert Timings
The purpose of this section is to analyze early concerts for of which the duration and
the program are known, in order to test whether they fit better single-beat or double-
beat tempi. 249 To be as charitable as possible, I calculated the hypothetical double-
beat timings using metronome marks when available, or the fastest recordings of the
pieces that I could find (which include repeats) when MMs were no available.

 Mozart’s October 15, 1790 concert in Frankfurt

The program for the concert included two piano concertos by Mozart (K.457 &
K.537);250 a “new symphony” by Mozart (it could have been either the Paris, Haffner,
K.319, or any of his three last symphonies 39-41);251 two soprano arias and a duet;
and finally an improvisation by Mozart. We have a surviving account of the concert
from an attendee that gives a few clues for the identity of the vocal pieces. 252 One of
the arias, sung by the castrato Ceccarelli, is described as “scena and rondeau” which
could fit K.374,253 and an aria containing “Non so di chi” might have been K.577 (“Al
desio, di chi t'adora vieni”).254 It was also reported that “The music thus lasted three
hours which was due to the fact that between all the pieces there were very long
pauses.”255

For the symphony, I’ve chosen no. 35 as it has a length in between the short Paris
symphony and the longer late symphonies. I’ve also assumed that the unknown duet
took 5 minutes.

249
Of course we cannot, in the strict sense, speak of either a ‘single-beat’ or a ‘double-beat’ tempo for a piece with no
MMs; however, by doubling the timing of very fast recordings I believe it is possible to get an approximation of what a
‘double-beat’ tempo for that piece would’ve been, if ‘double-beat’ tempi have indeed existed prior to the invention of
Malzel’s metronome.
250
Mozart, Haydn and Early Beethoven: 1781-1802: 1781–1802 by Daniel Heartz, p.259.
251
Ibid.
252
The full account appears in Mozart, a documentary biography by Otto Erich Deutsch, p.375.
253
See Performing Operas for Mozart: Impresarios, Singers and Troupes by Ian Woodfield, p.146.
254
The Imperial Coronation of Leopold II and Mozart, Frankfurt am Main, 1790 by Austin Glatthorn, p.108.
255
Deutsch, p.375.

46
Program (in single-beat)
- K.385 (sym. no.35): 20 min. (Pinnock)
- K.457 (pc. no.19): 24 min. (Brautigam)
- K.537 (pc. no.26): 28 min. (Brautigam)
- K.374: 7 min. (Maria Stader)
- K.577: 6 min. (Sylvia McNair)
- Duet: 5 min.
Single-beat: 90 minutes.
Double-beat: 180 minutes (3 hours)

The double-beat timing fits the reported concert duration, however, it doesn’t
include Mozart’s improvisation—which could’ve taken as much as half an hour or
more,256 and it doesn’t take into account “the very long pauses” between the pieces
which have been described in the quoted testimony above.

 Ignaz Schuppanzigh’s April 6, 1797 concert (with Beethoven as pianist)257

The program published for the concert was as follows:258

The symphonies performed cannot be identified with certainty, but we can safely
assume that they had the length of a typical late classical symphony by Mozart or
Haydn, which could take around 22 minutes in a fairly fast tempo. The violin
concerto by Schuppanizgh should’ve taken at least 15 minutes. The aria performed
was most probably Beethoven’s “Ah! Perfido”.259 We don’t have a contemporary

256
For example, Mozart was reported to improvise for half an hour at an 1787 Prague concert (Life of Mozart vol.2 by
Otto Jahn, p.440) https://books.google.com/books?id=9VYoAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA412
257
See Beethoven and His World: A Biographical Dictionary by H. P. Clive, p.xviii.
https://books.google.com/books?id=v0597Beh43EC&pg=PR18&lpg=PR18
258
Quoted from Concert Life in Haydn’s Vienna by Mary Sue Morrow, p.294.
259
Ludwig van Beethoven by W A. Thomas-San-Galli, p.97.
https://books.google.com/books?id=OfIzCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA97

47
timing for this concert, but a 1799 announcement in AMZ260 states that all concerts
organized by Schuppanzigh typically lasted for two hours, which I will assume was
the same for our concert.

Program (in Single-beat):

- Mozart Symphony: 22 min.
- Violin Concerto: 15 min.
- Beethoven Op.16: 20 min.
- Symphony: 22 min.
- Ah! Perfido: 12 min.
Total = 91 minutes.
Double-beat: 182 minutes (3 hours)

The double-beat duration exceeds the concert timing by a whole hour, not even
including the variations and Sarti’s aria.

 Beethoven’s December 22 1808 concert (as pianist and conductor):

Timing: 4 hours (“from half past six until half past ten”)261
Program:262

Single-beat:
- Symphony no.5: 30 min. (Chailly) (*Beethoven’s MMs)
- Symphony no.6: 38.5 min. (Chailly) (*Beethoven’s MMs)
- Piano Concerto no.4: 31 min. (Norrington\Tan) (*Czerny’s MMs)
- Choral Fantasy: 18 min. (Gardiner\Levin)
- Gloria & Sanctus from Mass in C: 19.5 min. (Gardiner)
- Ah! Perfido: 13 min. (Gardiner)

260
AMZ vol.1, 1799, p.325. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433069052284&view=1up&seq=377
261
Source Readings in Music History by Oliver Strunk, p.737.
262
Beethoven by Barry Cooper, p.193.

48
Total = 150 minutes.263
Double-beat: 300 minutes (5 hours)

If the concert were in double-beat it should have taken at least 5 hours—not

including Beethoven’s improvisation, the intermission and applauses—which
clearly goes way beyond the reported timing of 4 hours (and by a very significant
margin).

 Beethoven’s May 23 1824 concert

This was the second public performance of Beethoven’s 9th symphony (after the May
7th premiere). The concert program was as follows:264

We do not know the exact hour on which the concert had ended, but there is
evidence that the concert was planned to take around two hours. The following is an
entry in Beethoven’s conversation book from May 20th written by Anton Schindler,
stating that according to his calculation, the concert should end at 14:30, or take two
hours in total (the concert was planned to begin at 12:30 PM):265

263
The SB result falls short of the reported duration by an hour and a half. This could have multiple explanations: we
don’t know how long the intermission took or the timing of Beethoven’s improvisation, and there may have been
encores; there is also no reason to believe that Beethoven strictly adhered to his metronome indications—that have
been published much later in 1817 (if we assume that Beethoven adopted slower or more ‘traditional’ tempi we can
easily reach 3 hours of music). We also know, from multiple sources, that the performance of the Choral Fantasy was
stopped at some point and started all over again due to a mistake.
264
Quoted from Thayer’s Life of Beethoven, vol.2, p.912.
https://books.google.com/books?id=ND14o0R9VuUC&pg=PA912
265
Quoted from Die Uraufführungen von Beethovens Sinfonie Nr. 9 (Mai 1824) aus der Perspektive des Orchesters by
Theodore Albrecht, p.140. www.wieneroboe.at/albrecht/Albrecht_UA_Beethoven_9.pdf

49
The program that Schindler planned at this stage did not include Beethoven’s
Terzetto or Rossini’s aria, but did, of course, include the 9th symphony and possibly
the overture Op. 124. The exact program, however, makes little difference because
the 9th symphony alone would’ve filled the whole concert if played according to
double-beat (by taking around two hours), thus excluding the possibility of the
inclusion of any other pieces, let alone whole movements from the Emperor
concerto or the Missa Solemnis. On the other hand, the timings of the two programs
in single-beat fits very well the two-hour slot, also taking into account applause,
pauses between movements, and a possible intermission:

- [1st movement of the Emperor Concerto: 18:39 (Norrington/Tan – uses

Czerny’s MMs)]
- Overture Die Weihe des Hauses Op.124: 10 (Muti)
- Kyrie from Missa Solemnis: 8:48 (Gardiner)
- Tremate, empi tremate, Op.116: 8:41
- Rossini’s Di tanti palpiti: 3
- 9th Symphony: 58.5 (Zander – uses Beethoven’s MMs)
Total [Schindler’s program]: 1 hour & 36 minutes (over 3 hours in DB)
Total [final program]: 1.5 hours (3 hours in DB)

50
 Chamber concert by the Schuppanzigh Quartet, March 18 1827
Timing: 2 hours (4:30 PM - 6:30 PM)266

The quartet by Beethoven mentioned in the program could be no other than op.59 no.3.
There are, however, a number of possible candidates for the quartets by Mozart and
Haydn. But if we look at an almost identical program from 1824267 we can narrow the
pieces down to Haydn’s op.64 no.3 and Mozart’s K.428.268

Single-beat:
- Haydn’s Op.64, no.3: 20 min. (Amadeus Quartet)
- Mozart’s K.428: 25 min. (Talich Quartet)
- Beethoven’s Op.59, no.3: 30 min. (Alban Berg Quartet)
Total: 75 minutes.
Double-beat: 150 minutes (2.5 hours). [half an hour longer than the concert]
266
Picture is taken from The String Quartets of Beethoven by William Kinderman, p.8.
267
AMZ 1824, p.45. https://books.google.com/books?id=x_4sAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA45 The reference to Beethoven’s
‘quintet’ could be a misprint.
268
The 1824 program says “no.3 (Tost)” for Haydn (op. 64 is nicknamed ‘Tost-Quartette’, and no.3 is in matching
key); and “No.4” for Mozart, where K.428 is the fourth in the series of the famous ‘Haydn Quartets’ and is in a
matching key.

51
 Chopin’s September 27, 1848 Concert in Glasgow
During the year 1848 Chopin toured Britain and gave several concerts in England
and Scotland. One of them was a concert he gave in Glasgow on September 27, 1848.
Unfortunately, the concert is not as well documented as one would wish and thus
the program played by Chopin cannot be known with complete certainty. There is,
however, enough evidence to reconstruct most of the program, which should allow
us to draw some tentative conclusions regarding Chopin’s tempi.

Although the printed program for the concert is too general to identify many of the
pieces, an annotated program of the concert has survived listing the opus numbers
for each of the items on the program. 269 The annotated program still doesn’t tell us
how many pieces from each opus number were programmed by Chopin, but by
using additional sources it is possible to identify some of them. According to one
concert attendee, Chopin played the Mazurka Op.7 no.1 which was also encored;270
and according to another, at least two Valses from Op.64 were played, including
no.2.271 We can also safely assume that Chopin played at least the first two etudes
from Op.25.272

269
The annotations are probably by John Muir Wood, the concert organizer and accompanist, since the program had
been in the possession of Wood’s son, see Chopin in Britain by Peter Willis (doctoral thesis), p.69.
http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/1386/1/509352_vol1.pdf
270
Chopin by J.C Hadden (1903 ed.), p.146. https://archive.org/details/chopin1903hadd/page/146
271
Ibid, 148
272
A similar concert program from Chopin’s June 23 concert in London lists etudes “nos. 13&14” from Op.25 (see
Willis, plate 4.11 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/1386/3/509352_vol3.pdf). An attendee of another recital in Edinburgh on
October 4th remembered Chopin playing no.2 from Op.25, see Frederick Chopin, as a Man and Musician vol.2 (1888
ed.) by Frederick Niecks, p.298. https://archive.org/details/frederickchopina02niec/page/298)

52
The annotated Glasgow program273

The opening piece listed as ‘andante’ following by Op.36 (the Impromptu in F-sharp)
is uncertain, but it might be, for instance, anyone of the several nocturnes marked
‘andante’,274 so we can plausibly assume it to be a piece of moderate length around 3
minutes in duration.

273
Taken from Willis, plate 8.9. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/1386/3/509352_vol3.pdf
274
It could have been, for example, Op.48 no.2 (based on a description of the piece from a review of the Edinburgh
recital), or Op.27 no.2 (fitting ‘no.8’ in the annotated program as being the 8th nocturne).

53
And finally, a contemporary review tells us that the concert took “an hour and a
half”,275 and confirms that the vocal numbers listed in the program have in fact been
performed.

Based on all these sources, we can get an idea of the minimal list of pieces that
Chopin must’ve played at the Glasgow concert (or at least intended to play), which
are suggested in the reconstructed program below. To be as charitable as possible
towards double-beat, I assumed by default that Chopin played no more than one
piece from each opus number—unless indicated otherwise. For each piece genre
listed in the plural (etudes, nocturnes, and waltzes) I assumed that Chopin played no
more than two numbers, usually the first two from the opus. My reconstructed
‘minimal’ program is as follows:276

Timings in single-beat Source

Andante 3:00
Op.36 4:26 Cortot
Op.25, no.1 1:55 Chopin MMs
Op.25, no.2 1:20 Chopin MMs
Op.27, no.1 3:20 Chopin MMs
Op.55, no.1 4:00 Kullak MMs
Op.57 3:11 Josef Hofmann
Op.59, no.1 2:48 Samson François
Op.61 11:00 Kullak MMs
Op.28, no.4 1:23 Kullak MMs
Op.38 5.30 Kullak MMs
Op.7, no.1 2:00[4:00] Chopin MMs
Op.64, no.1 1:27 Chopin MMs
Op.64, no.2 3:00 Kullak MMs

Total: 50 minutes.
Double-beat: 100 minutes, or 1 hour & 40 min.

275
The review is quoted in Frederick Chopin; as a man and musician by Frederick Niecks, p.297.
https://archive.org/details/frederickchopin02niec/page/297
276
All the calculations include repeats.

54
The calculated double-beat duration is 10 minutes longer than the reported concert
timing, which would be tolerable if there were no other pieces included in the
program. But there are three additional vocal number listed, the first of which
(Niedermeyer’s Le Lac) takes around 5 and a half minutes according to its published
MMs,277 and if we assume that the other two pieces are of a comparable length,278
this should add at least 15-17 minutes in single-beat, or over half an hour in double-
beat, yielding more than two hours for the entire concert (or 40+ minutes longer
than the whole concert)—not including the applauses between the pieces which
should add at least 5-7 minutes more. It must also be kept in mind that we have no
reason to believe that Chopin did not play more pieces than what I have assumed.279
Thus, given our calculations, it appears very unlikely that Chopin played according
to double-beat in the Glasgow concert.

 Franz Liszt’s February 22, 1846 concert (Weimar) (as pianist and conductor)
Timing: 2.5 hours (6:30 PM – 9 PM)280

Program: (in Single-beat)

- Berlioz’s Waverley: 10 min.
- Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto: 34 min. (Norrington\Tan) (*Czerny’s MMs)
- Weber’s Overture to Oberon: 9 min. (Norrington)
- Félicien David’s Le désert: 50 min. (roughly according to David’s MMs)
Total: 103 minutes.
Double-beat: 206 minutes (3 hours and 26 minutes)

The double-beat timing already exceeds the actual concert length by a whole hour—
and we haven’t even included all the pieces on the program.

277
https://imslp.org/wiki/Le_lac_(Niedermeyer%2C_Louis)
278
I could not find recordings or sheet music for either of the songs.
279
For example, several authors suggest that Chopin played no.2 from Op.55 and a whole series of Mazurkas from
op.7, though I could not confirm this based on the primary sources I had.
280
https://archive.thulb.uni-jena.de/staatsarchive/rsc/viewer/ThHStAW_derivate_00049161/008156.tif

55
 Franz Liszt’s August 29, 1849 concert (Weimar)
Timing: 3 hours (6 PM – 9 PM)281

Program: (in Single-beat)

- Mendelssohn’s Meeresstille und Glückliche Fahrt: 11 min. (Kurt Masur)
- Schubert’s Gretchem am Spinnrade D.118
- Liszt’s Weimars Toten S303
- _____ Chor der Engel aus Faust S85, pt.II: 10 min. (Gabor Ugrin)
- Schumann’s Fausts Verklärung (Scenes from Faust): 42 min. (Daniel Harding)
- Beethoven’s 9th Symphony: 58.5 min. (Zander)
Total: 121.5 minutes.
Double-beat: 243 minutes (4 hours)

The double-beat timing exceeds the actual concert length by a whole hour—and we
haven’t included all the pieces on the program or taken account of the intermission.

 Clara Schumann’s and Franz Liszt’s 282 October 27, 1854 concert (Weimar)
Timing: 2.5 hours (6:30 PM - 9 PM)283

Program: (in single-beat - pieces identifiable with certainty)

- Schumann’s Manfred Overture: 10.5 min. (Schumann’s MMs)
- ___ Piano Concerto: 28 min. (Howard Shelley)
- ___ Symphony no.4: 27 min. (Norrington) (*Schumann’s MMs)
- Mendelssohn’s Variations Sérieuses: 10 min. (Cortot)
- Ernst’s Papageno Rondo: 10 min. (Sherban Lupu & Ian Hobson)
- Heller’s Slatarello: 5 min. (Maria Bergmann)
Total: 90.5 minutes.
Double-beat: 181 minutes (3 hours).

The double-beat timing already exceeds the timing of the whole concert by half an
hour, without even counting all the pieces on the program and the intermission.
281
https://archive.thulb.uni-jena.de/staatsarchive/rsc/viewer/ThHStAW_derivate_00048706/008622.tif
282
According to Alan Walker (Franz Liszt: The Weimar years, 1848-1861, p.289) Liszt conducted the orchestra.
https://books.google.com/books?id=yNhQhSgRlWIC&pg=PA289
283
https://archive.thulb.uni-jena.de/staatsarchive/rsc/viewer/ThHStAW_derivate_00044628/009384.tif

56
57
58
59
 Hans von Bülow’s December 20, 1873 recital in Cheltenham:
2 hours (with 5 minutes intermission)284

Program: (in single-beat)

- Beethoven’s Sonata no.23: 21 min. (Brautigam)
- Handel’s Prelude (F minor) & Fugue: 5 min. (Michael Borgsted)
- _________ Chaconne “in a major key” (F Major?): 5.5 min. (Michael Borgsted)
- Mendelssohn’s Variations op.82: 7 min. (Marie-Catherine Girod)
- Chopin’s Berceuse: 4 min. (Cortot)
- Moscheles’ La Leggerezza
- Anton Rubinstein’s Barcarolle no.4: 4 min. (Rubinstein)
- Sterndale Bennett’s Sonata no.2 op.6: 21 min. (Ilona Prunyi)
- Liszt’s Etude Ronde de Lutins (encored): 2.5(5) min. (Cziffra)
- _______ Venezia e Napoli: 14 min. (Berezovsky)
Total: 86.5 minutes.
Double-beat: 173 minutes. (2 hours and 53 minutes)

The double-beat timing is 1 hour longer than the length of the whole concert.

284
The Musical Standard, vol.5, 1873, p.391. https://books.google.com/books?id=rug2AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA391

60
Interpretation and Analysis

My motivation for compiling this document was to present clear and unambiguous
evidence in order to asses the historical plausibility of the so-called ‘double-beat’ or
‘whole-beat’ theory about historical metronome indications as it is advocated by
Wim Winters on his YouTube channel ‘Authentic Sound’. Because most of the
sources give us timings in minutes and hours this should, I hope, allow us to bypass
semantic disputes about beats and pendulums, and provide conclusive evidence for
the actual (and not merely theoretical) tempi which had been practiced by the living
musicians.285 What follows is my own assessment of the double-beat theory in light
of the evidence that has been presented here.

Even though many of the timings which are presented in this documents appear to
be only rough estimates (for instance, when reported by musical critics—though
some of them are clearly precisely timed, or calculated from a score); nevertheless,
when all the numbers are taken collectively, they easily can be seen to sit very firmly
in the range of accepted modern tempi for the pieces described. And furthermore,
they do not, for the most part,286 deviate radically from the metronomic indications
for the pieces (understood in ‘single-beat’) when such exist.

To appreciate just how robustly the existence of double-beat tempi is ruled out by
the data collected here, I will present a simple statistical analysis of one
comparatively large set of historical timings that we have for Beethoven’s 3rd and 9th
symphonies as a study case. The following table shows 10 concert timings and

285
See however the appendix on the metronome at the end of this section.
286
There are a few instances of unusually slow tempi for certain pieces—most commonly of choral music—but they
are very few and far between, and hardly constitute evidence for a widespread existence of ‘double-beat’, given that the
bulk of the data points to tempi that are radically at odds with the speeds hypothesized by the double-beat theory. The
only examples that I could find of something that could be interpreted as a ‘double-beat’ tempo (by this I mean a tempo
that is exactly twice as slow as the tempo indicated by the metronome marks given by the composer) come from
Berlioz when describing the finale of his Romeo and Juliet plus one or two timings of some shorter pieces. But even
here, it seems very unlikely that these timings could be taken as evidence that Berlioz used the metronome in double-
beat because we have many other timings by the composer of his other metronomized pieces (including the finale of
R&J) which fit very well his metronome marks in single-beat. (In addition, Berlioz sometimes gives even faster timings
than his MMs.)

61
estimates for these two symphonies from the first half of the 19th century (1805-
1842)—roughly corresponding to Beethoven’s own lifetime (1770-1827):287

Historical Metronome Historical Metronome

Timings Timings Timings Timings
No.3: (minutes) Single-beat: 42 mins.288 No.9: (minutes) Single-beat: 58.5 mins.289
60 (1805) Double-beat: 84 mins. 45 (1825) Double-beat: 117 mins.

<60 (1807) 64 (1825)

Mean (μ): 49 minutes Mean (μ): 66.8 minutes
50 (1811) 65 (1825)
Standard deviation (σ): Standard deviation (σ): 9.93
41 (1820) 70 (1825)
8.52
45 (1824) 80 (1825)
50 (1828) 75 (1826)
45 (1829) 67.5 (1837)
46 (1829) >60 (1838)
<60 (1839) 61.5 (1841)
33 (1842) 80 (1841)

But before I present the analysis of the data, a few comments are called for. First, I
do not wish to claim that this data shows that Beethoven’s symphonies (or the
music by any other composer for that matter) were always played strictly according
to Beethoven’s metronome indications in ‘single-beat’ during the early 19th century.
The data clearly shows that they were not. This, however, should hardly come as a
surprise. No reasonable defender of ‘single-beat’ needs to claim that the metronome
marks left by the composers must have been followed by all people at all times.290
Nor do we need to invent some ad-hoc theory of ‘1¾ beat’ (or whatever) in order to
force the existing metronome indications into a perfect match with the known
historical tempi.

287
All the sources for the data in this table are cited above in the sub-section devoted to Beethoven.
288
For the estimated timings, I used Riccardo Chailly’s recording on Decca (which is one of the fastest recordings of
the piece, claimed to follow Beethoven’s metronome indications.).
289
For the estimated timings, I used Benjamin Zander’s recording with the Philharmonia Orchestra (2018), who strictly
follows Beethoven’s metronome indications.
290
The concept of an ‘interpretation’ is not a 20 th century invention, and there is not reason to believe that 19th century
musicians differed significantly from musicians in the 20th and 21 st centuries: some have preferred faster tempi, other
slower, and most others something in the middle. There is no a-priori reason to expect that all musicians in the early
19th century bothered to follow Beethoven’s metronome marks, any more than they did in the 20th—especially given
the fact that Beethoven’s music was technically very challenging for its time and had often been performed by amateur
orchestras with little rehearsal time (for more information see The Orchestra in Beethoven’s Vienna by Clive Brown).

62
It must also be kept in mind that the very notion of the ‘exact tempo’ indicated by
the metronome marks lacks a precise sense when applied to music from the
romantic period. Virtually all composers of the era allowed for—and often actively
encouraged—large degrees of tempo flexibility in their music; sometimes perhaps
to a degree that we are not used to in modern times.291 Therefore, the assumption
that the only right way to arrive at the composer’s desired tempi is to mechanically
follow his metronome marks cannot be taken for granted as an absolute historical
fact. Thus a performance deviating by a few minutes from the ‘strict mathematical’
metronomic tempo could still be reasonably taken to be faithfully following
‘Beethoven’s tempi’ or ‘Beethoven’s metronome’ in single-beat.292 For these reasons,
a certain degree of deviation from Beethoven’s metronome marks in historical
performances should not be regarded as a refutation of ‘single-beat’.

If we now return to our data, what we should expect to find if the double-beat
hypothesis is true is tempi which are about half the speed of Beethoven’s
metronome indications as they are usually interpreted today (namely, in ‘single-
beat’). If we can then show that such tempi did not exist historically (and by a very
large margin—as I will show shortly)—it would then follow293 that the
double/whole-beat method of using the metronome most probably did not exist
either.

If we now look more closely at the data above, the first striking thing to notice is that
not even a single number remotely approaches the hypothetical ‘double-beat’
duration. Even the slowest recorded timings deviate significantly from what is
predicted by the double-beat theory (by 24 minutes in the case of the Eroica, and a
291
If the existing recording by many late 19th century musicians (which often display quite extreme tempo fluctuations)
is taken as evidence of practices earlier in the century.
292
For example, on one of his manuscripts, Beethoven wrote: “100 according to Maelzel, but this must be held
applicable to only the first measures, for feeling also has its tempo and this cannot entirely be expressed in this figure.”
https://books.google.com/books?id=QaW0AQAAQBAJ&pg=PA40
293
By the rule of Modus Tollens of formal logic. Of course the mere existence of tempi in the single-beat range does
not rule out (in the strict logical sense) the possibility that some (or even all) composers used the metronome according
to the double-beat system—but it would be a truly bizarre hypothesis to assume that a composer was double-beat, while
never making sure that his music was played according to his desired tempi (in some cases, even by himself). See also
the appendix og a list of docoments demonstrating that ‘single-beat’ was widely practiced in the 1 st half of the 19 th
century—strating with the inventor of the metronome (I’m not claiming that my research on early 19 th century
metronome source is anywhere near being exhaustive, yet the fact that I was not able to find even a single ‘double-beat’
source on the metronome (and there is no shortage of histporical instructions and explanetions regarding the
metronome) should cast a serious dubt on the hypothesis that such a practice even existed, let alone was widespread).

63
whopping 37 minutes in the case of the 9th symphony).294 In comparison, a few of
our numbers match perfectly with the durations calculated in single-beat, and many
are not very far behind (the average timing for both symphonies falls short of
Beethoven’s metronome by a mere 7 or 8 minutes). The large gap between the data
and double-beat timings can be clearly seen in the following charts (drawn to scale):

3rd Symphony:

294
The standard deviation of the double-beat tempo from the average duration is more than 4 sigma, which makes them
(for all intents and purposes) statistically impossible.

64
9th Symphony:

To get a sense of how improbable double-beat is according to our data, we can

calculate the relative probabilities of the reality of single-beat tempi in comparison
to double-beat (while taking into account the admittedly large standard deviation in
the timings).295 If we take our data to be representative of the historical range of
tempi for these symphonies as they existed at the period (and go by rather
conservative definitions for ‘single-beat’ and ‘double-beat’)296 the probabilities that
we arrive at are 0.017% for the Eroica and 0.0003% for the 9th symphony of having
been historically performed in double-beat.297 298 This makes the existence of single-

295
Although the data is not always reliable, and some of the numbers are most certainly wrong (particularly some of
the fastest and slowest reported timings), we should remember that even errors could be revealing. For even when a
tempo estimate is wrong, a person is very unlikely to mistake what should be a single-beat tempo for a double-beat
tempo or vice versa—particularly when it comes to very long pieces like our two Beethoven symphonies.
296
The defined range is allows a deviation of +/- 3 minutes at most from the strict metronomic duration.
297
On the other hand, the probabilities that we get for single-beat are 19.5% for the Eroica and 16.6% for the 9 th, which
is not surprising given that most of the reported timings tend to be on the slow side, compared to Beethoven’s
metronome indications.
298
The probability of double-beat for the Eroica is higher than it should be because two of the 1 hour timings are
reported in the sources as “less than an hour”, which could be shorter by as much as 5 minutes or even more, but this
was not taken into an account in the calculations. I should also note that we do not know for the majority of our timings
whether all the repeats have been taken, but this shouldn’t make much of a difference to the analysis, since the repeats
constitute a very small portion of the overall length of the two pieces (for instance, the exposition takes less than 3
minutes in Chailly’s single-beat recording of the Eroica). Even a double-beat performance without repeats would still
be very much slower than any slow ‘normal’ performance with the repeats included (compare for instance
Celibidache’s Beethoven recordings).

65
beat tempi 1,136 times more likely than that of double-beat for the Eroica, and
53,592 times more likely for the 9th symphony given our data.299

The enormous improbability of the existence of double-beat tempi in the common

practice of the early 19th century is further confirmed by the numerous
contemporary reviews that we have for Beethoven’s symphonies (from which many
of our timings have been taken). When reading these review we see critics (both
German and British) complaining time and again of the unheard-of lengths of
Beethoven’s symphonies, which they report of taking from 40 minutes to well over
an hour (in reviews of symphonies nos. 3, 6, 7, 9).

For example, consider the following critic in an 1805 review300 of the Eroica
Symphony (conducted by the composer) who argues that “the symphony would gain
infinitely (it lasts a whole hour) if [Beethoven] decided to cut it short and bring
more light, clarity and unity to the whole”:

299
I would like to give special thanks to Aldo Roberto Pessolano for making the statistical calculations and drawing the
charts. The calculations have been performed on Mathematica and the algorithm used can be downloaded in the
following link https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ulnIF4XBIRptq9vchOn7ZqD7-99g_jFP/view?usp=sharing
300
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433069052342&view=1up&seq=295

66
Or again, an English critic in an 1828 review301 suggested that Beethoven’s Pastoral
Symphony should be reduced in length from 40 to 30 minutes:

These reviews (and other similar ones) clearly indicate that a symphony lasting
around one hour was considered highly unusual in Beethoven’s lifetime (and even a
decade later), which should appear very puzzling if the double-beat hypothesis were
true, because one would expect such lengths to be a fairly common thing since at
least the second half of the 18th century. For example, many of Mozart’s and Haydn’s
late symphonies (and Beethoven’s first two) must take at least 45-50 minutes (if not
a whole hour) if played according to the tempi suggested by the double-beat theory;
and yet the fact that early 19th century critics found such lengths very unusual,
shows that symphonies lasting around an hour were simply unknown prior to
Beethoven.

To sum up, based on all the data presented in this document, I believe we can reach
two general conclusions regarding tempi and metronome marks that refute most of
the premises behind the double-beat theory:

(a) There is no evidence for the existence of a uniform ‘slow tempo tradition’ in
Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. Nor is there any evidence for a uniform

301
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uva.x002101950&view=1up&seq=147

67
 ‘tempo shift’ which (according to Wim Winters) had supposedly taken place
at some point during the 19th century.302
(b) There is conclusive evidence showing that many of the most famous
composers and musicians from the mid- and the second half of the 19th
century (Such as Mendelssohn, Cherubini, Berlioz, Liszt, Wagner, Alkan,
Brahms, von Bülow and others) did not use the metronome according to
‘double-beat’ as demonstrated by a very close fit between the timings these
composers have themselves given and the metronome indications of the
pieces which they describe (—when understood in single-beat).303
For these reasons, I believe that the data collected here makes for a decisive
argument against the historical plausibility of the double-beat theory.

302
This, of course, does not show that no general ‘tempo shifts’ ever happened (the data isn’t extensive enough to show
either way) but if tempi did change, the changes could not have been as radical as Wim Winters believes. The evidence
clearly shows that there has never been a period in which virtually all the important composers and musicians of the
time uniformly followed the kind of slow tempi that are suggested by the double-beat theory, and then a later period in
which the tempo range nearly doubled.
303
There is unfortunately a comparative lack of timings by composers of the early parts of the 19th century, and yet
given that (a) the existing timings from this period of music by these composers (most notably Beethoven) falls within
the range of single-beat, and (b) the fact that the composers of the later parts of the century—many of whom personally
knew the older composers (or have been their students)—have all used the metronome in single beat, and never
remarked on the alleged fact that their great teachers or predecessors used an alternative system—we can conclude that
it is very unlikely that Beethoven (and other composers of his generation) could have been using the metronome in
double-beat.

68
Appendix
Early 19th Century Single-Beat Descriptions of the Metronome

All of the following sources show very clearly that their authors understood the
metronome the same way as we understand it today (that is, in ‘single-beat’). Nine
of the sources give explicit descriptions of the number of notes or bars that one gets
in a minute for a given metronome indication, which allows us to rule out
completely the possibility that any of those authors understood the metronome
according to the double-beat/whole-beat theory.

By definition, the double-beat system assigns to each note two metronome ticks
instead of one (as in single-beat), which entails that in the space of every minute one
must play exactly half the number of notes (or bars) that one would play in single-
beat (which is why we get a slower tempo). Therefore, if an author says how many
notes or bars one can play in a minute, we can know, without any doubt, whether
the author meant double-beat or single-beat.304

304
This means that we need not bother here with the definition of ‘beat’ or ‘schlag’, but see the sources from Schubert
and Schumann.

69
1817:305
According to the article, the metronome indicates
how many notes are to be played in a minute. The
length of each note should be equal to the fraction
of a minute obtained when a minute is divided by
the number indicated on the metronome scale.
The author cannot possibly mean here double-
beat, because he says that the length of each
note is “equal to the fraction” and not: “equal to
two fractions” as it must be according to double-
beat.

This is confirmed by what he says next:

 MM: minim = 60
= 60 minims per minute
(instead of 30 in double-beat)
 MM: crotchet = 100
= 100 crotchets per minute
(instead of 50 in double-beat)
 MM: quaver = 75
= 75 quavers per minute
(instead of 37.5 in double-beat)

1827:306

MM Crotchet = 72: 72 crotchets in a minutes, or 24 bars in 3/4 time.

(in double-beat, it should’ve been 36 crotchets in a minute, or 12 bars)

305
The Edinburgh Magazine and Literary Miscellany vol.80, 1817, p.222.
https://books.google.com/books?id=BewRAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA222
306
The Quarterly Musical Magazine and Review vol. IX, 1827 p,187.
https://books.google.com/books?id=3wUVAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA187

70
Johann Nepomuk Mälzel [1772-1838] (the inventor of the metronome),
1821:307

(all the bars are in 4/4)

Half note = 80: 40 bars in a minute (20 bars in DB) - fast
Half note = 120: 60 bars in a minute (30 bars in DB) - very fast
8th note = 80: 10 bars in a minute (5 bars in DB) - slow
8th note = 56: 7 bars in a minute (3.5 bars in DB) - very slow (“when the
counterweight is set to 56, only seven 4/4 bars are played in one minute”)

Mälzel refers to the following table308 (which he also sent to Beethoven in 1818,
adding: “It goes without saying that I do not want to give you any instructions about
it; you know the subject as well as anyone”): 309

307
AMZ 1821, p.641. https://books.google.com/books?id=-BNDAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA639
308
The table is taken from Letters to Beethoven and Other Correspondence: 1813-1823 by Theodore Albrecht (ed.),
pp.140-1. https://books.google.com/books?id=b-5utjmbfw8C&pg=PA140
309
Ibid, p.137. https://books.google.com/books?id=b-5utjmbfw8C&pg=PA137

71
Gottfried Weber [1779-1839], c.1830-3310

Original German text: 311 (pp.88-9)

310
Theory of musical composition by Gottfried Weber (1851 translation from the 3d German edition) vol.1, p.67.
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044040336802&view=1up&seq=97
311
https://books.google.com/books?id=JoNZAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA88

72
Henri Herz [1803-1888], c.1838: (English edition)312

If Herz were double-beat

he should’ve written instead:
‘60 crotchets in a minute’
‘42 quavers in a minutes’
‘38 dotted crotchets in a minute’

1 beat = 1 note value

(instead of: ‘2 beats = one note”
or: ‘1 beat = half a note’ if Herz were
double-beat/whole-beat)

The French/German edition:313

312
Méthode complète de Piano, Op.100 by Henri Herz, p.6.
https://imslp.org/wiki/M%C3%A9thode_compl%C3%A8te_de_Piano%2C_Op.100_(Herz%2C_Henri)
313
https://books.google.com/books?id=WBlDAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA12

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1840:314

MM Crotchet = 100: 100 crotchets in a minute (50 crotchets if it were double-beat).

The author also makes it very clear that every beat corresponds to a single
metronome tick.

314
The Musical Magazine vol.2, 1840, p.68. https://books.google.com/books?id=d5MPAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA68

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Ignaz Moscheles [1794 – 1870] & François-Joseph Fétis [1784 – 1871],
c.1840:315
“When the composer marks quaver = 60 this means there are 60 quavers in one
minute, or one per second, this is the slowest tempo; When he marks minim = 120
one must play two minims in a second, which is a fast tempo.”

Moscheles on the first movement of Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata:316

It is evident here that Moscheles never heard about Beethoven’s being ‘double-
beat’,317 otherwise, he would not have called the tempo of the first movement “so
fearful a prestissimo as Beethoven could never have intended”, and proposed a
doubling of Beethoven’s original MMs (and even if he did read Beethoven’s MMs
according to double-beat, did he wanted Beethoven’s double-beat tempo to be
doubled a second time?). Although it is true Moscheles halved the tempo for the
sonata in his edition, it is clear from the quote that his reason was not that he
believed that Beethoven was ‘double-beat’ but only because he didn’t want to
change Beethoven’s own number out of respect. Moscheles does not make the claim
that the tempo in his edition is Beethoven’s real desired tempo, but to the contrary
that the tempo “slackens the movement all too much”.

315
Quoted from Méthode des Méthodes de Piano by F.J Fétis and J. Moscheles, p.V.
https://imslp.org/wiki/M%C3%A9thode_des_m%C3%A9thodes%2C_Op.98_(Moscheles%2C_Ignaz)
316
Quoted from The Life of Beethoven vol.2 by Anton Schindler & Ignaz Moscheles eds., p.252.
https://archive.org/details/lifebeethovenin00moscgoog/page/n268
317
Or even “variable beat” as Willem Retze Talsma have proposed.

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Franz Schubert, c.1822:318

If by ‘Striche’ Schubert meant a single metronome click (and what else could he
mean?) then, if Schubert were double-beat, he should’ve written ‘4 Striche im Takt’
and ’24 Striche im Takt’ instead of what we actually read, which clearly indicates
single-beat (namely: 1 Striche for each note value).

Robert Schumann’s letter to composer Ferdinand Böhme (February 8, 1853):

“Have you a correct metronome? All the tempi appear to me far too quick. Mine is
correct. It always gives as many beats [Schläge] to the minute as the number on
which the weight is placed. For instance, if the number is 50, it gives 50 beats to the
minute; if 60 = 60. And, as far as I know, this is the test of correctness. Perhaps you
would try your metronome in this respect. –Robert Schumann”319

According to double-beat, a Schläg (beat) stands for two metronome ticks (e.g. MM
60 = 30 Schläge); but since Schumann explicitly says that the number of Schläge in a
minute is the same as the number of metronome ticks indicated on the metronome
scale, he clearly means that 1 Schläg = 1 metronome tick.

Original German:320

318
Quoted from Classical and Romantic Performing Practice 1750-1900 by Clive Brown, p.288.
https://books.google.com/books?id=dHxOUcHeTcwC&pg=PA288
319
Quoted from Brian Schlotel, “Schumann and the Metronome,” in Robert Schumann: The Man and His Music, ed.
Alan Walker p.110.
320
P.309 https://imslp.org/wiki/Robert_Schumann%27s_Briefe_(Schumann%2C_Robert)

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Adolf Bernhard Marx [1795 - 1866] c.1839:321

321
Quoted from The Universal School of Music by Adolf Bernhard Marx (A.H. Wehrhan tr.) [1853 ed.], pp.82-3.
https://archive.org/details/universalschool00marxgoog/page/n102 For the original 1839 German edition see
https://books.google.com/books?id=V-8mHWmRKsgC&pg=PA92

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78
Louis François Dauprat [1781-1868], 1857:322

“After these preparations and once one has put the index on the indicated number,
all there is left is to give a small impulse to the balance, whereby every oscillation will
correspond to the duration of the note-value given at the beginning of the piece. The
other notes will be twice or three times as slow as the given note-value, or two or
three times as fast. [Footnote B]

The reader will try to use the metronome on the three principal measures of the
second table, by singing the only pitch it contains. So he will place the regulator on
the indicated number, knowing that the time interval between the ‘come’ and ‘go’ of
each oscillation equals the length of the note given with the number.

[Footnote B]: One is sure that the metronome is regulated correctly after the
principle of its inventor when the index (the mobile part that glides along the
balance) placed at the number 60 gives this number of oscillations per minute or, so to
say, one per second.”

1 MM beat = 1 oscillation = 1 note value

322
Le professeur de musique, p.75. https://archive.org/details/leprofesseurdemu00daup/page/75

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L'Art du Violon by Jean-Baptiste Cartier [1765-1841] c.1823323

MM ¼ note = 104 (96 bars) – 3.7 minutes324

MM ¼ note = 138 – 2.8 minutes

MM ½ note = 90 (192 bars) – 4.2 minutes

MM ¼ note = 108 (48 bars) – 5.3 minutes

323
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015025414957&view=1up&seq=68&size=125
324
The calculated timings are faster than the indicated timings, so they are certainly not double-beat.

80