Shortly after Beethoven’s death, several of his closest associates provided performance indications for editions of his works. Previous discussions of Carl Czerny’s and Ignaz Moscheles’s metronome marks for Beethoven’s piano sonatas have highlighted the importance of these indications for our understanding of the intended performance practice of these works. Nevertheless, the provenance and meaning of these metronome marks have remained unclear, which has led to some confusion in the literature.By presenting new evidence, including the discovery of what are most likely the metronome marks intended for the missing sonatas from the first ‘complete’ edition by Tobias Haslinger, the article presents a more complete overview of the indications in these editions, as well as their chronology. In addition, it also discusses to what degree the editors seem to have influenced each other, which indications are most likely representative of Beethoven’s intended speeds, as well as why the metronome fell out of favour later in the nineteenth century. Finally, it discusses the meaning of these metronome marks for modern performers, and how these editions give options to disentangle the author from the text.

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Re-examining Czerny’s and Moscheles’s Metronome Marks for Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas

This article draws together a range of perspectives on one of the supreme works in the piano repertoire, Beethoven’s Sonata no. 29, op. 106. Composed in extreme circumstances, it takes sonata form to the limit, while at the same time revealing a search for new ways forward. From its first appearance right up to the present day, its complexity has distanced it from the general public, and even from many performers. The main object of this study is to provide elements that enable us to understand what is, in stylistic terms, one of the composer’s most atypical pieces. For this purpose it examines biographical, contextual, and structural aspects of the work, as well as questions of interpretation on the basis of the various existing editions and of fifty-one performances, which confirm a widespread tradition of slow tempos, despite Beethoven’s precise and consistent indications.

A Panoramic Survey of Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata, Op. 106: Composition and Performance

In December 1828 the Viennese publisher Tobias Haslinger announced his Sdimmtliche Werhe von Ludw van Beethoven Immediately following the composer's name, before the dedication, the reader is informed that the edition would be 'Mit Angabe der TempoBezeichnungen nach Mailzl's Metronom' ('With specification of the tempo indications according to Maelzel's metronome')1 There is little doubt that choice of tempo is a fundamental yet elusive aspect of performance practice: For Beethoven, tempo was an inherent part of the character of a composition The difficulty in determining correct tempos for his works during his lifetime reflects the fact that tempo was becoming less tied to traditional criteria-a combination of meter, tempo categories and note values-and, at the same time, increasingly individualized Beethoven tried to suggest appropriate tempos for his works with increasingly long strings of adjectives, such as Andante con moto assai vivace quasi Allegretto ma non troppo for the Kyrie of the Mass in C (1807), and later with German phrases for 'the spirit of the composition';2 but ultimately he endorsed first the chronom&tre and then its successor, the metronome To the end of his life, letters,3 public notices,4 publication of his own metronome marks for some of his most important compositions,5 and efforts to keep his metronome in good repair,6 all demonstrate his continued support for the instrument

Sandra P. Rosenblum

Papers

Two sets of unexplored metronome marks for Beethoven's piano sonatas