Temp |

ital. tempo, from lat. tempus – time

The speed of unfolding the musical fabric of a work in the process of its performance or presentation by internal hearing; is determined by the number of basic metric fractions passing per unit time. Originally lat. the word tempus, like the Greek. xronos (chronos), meant a period of time determined. quantities. In the Middle Ages. in mensural music, tempus is the duration of a brevis, which could be equal to 3 or 2 semibrevis. In the 1st case “T.” was called perfect (perfectum), in the 2nd – imperfect (im-perfectum). These “T.” similar to later notions of odd and even time signatures; hence English. the term time, denoting the size, and the use of the mensural sign C, indicating the imperfect “T.”, to indicate the most common even size. In the clock system that replaced the mensural rhythm, T. (Italian tempo, French temps) was originally the main. clock beat, most often a quarter (semiminima) or half (minima); 2-beat measure in French called. mesure and 2 temps is “measure at 2 tempos”. T. was understood, therefore, as a duration, the value of which determines the speed of movement (Italian movimento, French mouvement). Transferred to other languages ​​(primarily German), Italian. the word tempo began to mean exactly movimento, and the same meaning was given to Russian. the word “T.” The new meaning (which is related to the old one, like the concept of frequency in acoustics to the concept of the magnitude of the period) does not change the meaning of such expressions as L’istesso tempo (“the same T.”), Tempo I (“return to the initial T.” ), Tempo precedente (“return to the previous T.”), Tempo di Menuetto, etc. In all these cases, instead of tempo, you can put movimento. But to indicate twice as fast T., the designation doppio movimento is necessary, since doppio tempo would mean twice the duration of the beat and, consequently, twice as slow T.

Changing the meaning of the term “T.” reflects a new attitude to time in music, characteristic of the clock rhythm, which replaced at the turn of the 16th-17th centuries. mensural: ideas about duration give way to ideas about speed. Durations and their ratios lose their definition and undergo changes due to expressiveness. Already K. Monteverdi distinguished from the mechanically even “T. hands” (“… tempo de la mano”) “T. affect of the soul” (“tempo del affetto del animo”); the part requiring such a technique was published in the form of a score, in contrast to other parts printed according to the tradition of otd. voices (8th book of madrigals, 1638), thus, the connection of “expressive” T. with the new vertical-chord thinking clearly appears. Oh express. many authors of this era (J. Frescobaldi, M. Pretorius, and others) write about deviations from even T.; see Tempo rubato. T. without such deviations in the clock rhythm is not the norm, but a special case, often requiring special. indications (“ben misurato”, “streng im ZeitmaYa”, etc.; already F. Couperin at the beginning of the 18th century uses the indication “mesurй”). Mathematical precision is not assumed even when “a tempo” is indicated (cf. “in the character of a recitative, but in tempo” in Beethoven’s 9th symphony; “a tempo, ma libero” – “Nights in the gardens of Spain” by M. de Falla). “Normal” should be recognized as T., allowing deviations from the theoretical. duration of notes within certain zones (HA Garbuzov; see Zone); however, the more emotional the music, the more easily these limits are violated. In the romantic performance style, as measurements show, on-beat may exceed the duration of the following (such paradoxical relationships are noted, in particular, in the performance of A. N. Scriabin’s own work), although there are no indications of changes in T. in the notes, and listeners usually do not notice them. These unnoticed deviations indicated by the author differ not in magnitude, but in psychological significance. sense: they do not follow from the music, but are prescribed by it.

Both the violations of uniformity indicated in the notes and those not indicated in them deprive the tempo unit (“counting time”, German Zdhlzeit, tempo in the original meaning) of a constant value and allow us to speak only about its average value. In accordance with this metronomic designations that at first glance determine the duration of notes, in fact indicate their frequency: a larger number ( = 100 compared to = 80) indicates a shorter duration. In the metronomic the designation is essentially the number of beats per unit time, and not the equality of the intervals between them. Composers who turn to the metronome often note that they do not require a mechanical. metronome uniformity. L. Beethoven to his first metronomic. indication (the song “North or South”) made a note: “This applies only to the first measures, for the feeling has its own measure, which cannot be fully expressed by this designation.”

“T. affect ”(or“ T. feelings ”) destroyed the definition inherent in the mensural system. duration of notes (integer valor, which could be changed by proportions). This caused the need for verbal designations of T. At first, they related not so much to speed as to the nature of music, “affect”, and were quite rare (since the nature of music could be understood without special instructions). All R. 18th century defined. the relationship between verbal designations and speed, measured (as in mensural music) by a normal pulse (about 80 beats per minute). The instructions of I. Quantz and other theorists can be translated into metronomic. notation next. way:

An intermediate position is occupied by allegro and andante:

To the beginning 19th century these ratios of the names of T. and the speed of movement were no longer maintained. There was a need for a more accurate speed meter, which was answered by the metronome designed by I. N. Meltsel (1816). The great value of the metronomic L. Beethoven, K. M. Weber, G. Berlioz, and others gave instructions (as a general guideline in T.). These instructions, like the definitions of Quantz, do not always refer to the main. tempo unit: in ambulance T. account b. h. goes with longer durations ( instead in C, instead в ), in slow ones – smaller ones ( и instead in C, instead в ). In the classic music in slow T. means that one should count and conduct on 4, not on 8 (for example, the 1st part of the sonata for piano, op. 27 No 2 and the introduction to Beethoven’s 4th symphony). In the post-Beethoven era, such a deviation of the account from the main. metric shares seems redundant, and the designation in these cases it goes out of use (Berlioz in the introduction of the “Fantastic Symphony” and Schumann in the “Symphonic Etudes” for piano replace the original is familiar with). Metronomic Beethoven’s instructions regarding (including in sizes such as 3/8), always determine not the main. metric share (tempo unit), and its subdivision (counting unit). Later, the understanding of such indications was lost, and some T., indicated by Beethoven, began to seem too fast (for example, = 120 in the 2nd movement of the 1st symphony, where T. should be represented as . = 40).

Correlation of the names of T. with speed in the 19th century. are far from the unambiguity assumed by Quantz. With the same name T. heavier metric. shares (ex. compared with ) require less speed (but not twice; we can assume that = 80 approximately corresponds to = 120). The verbal designation T. indicates, therefore, not so much on speed, but on the “quantity of movement” – the product of speed and mass (the value of the 2nd factor increases in romantic music, when not only quarters and half notes act as tempo units , but also other musical values). The nature of T. depends not only on the main. pulse, but also from intralobar pulsation (creating a kind of “tempo overtones”), the magnitude of the beat, etc. Metronomic. speed turns out to be just one of many factors that create T., the value of which is the less, the more emotional the music. All R. 19th century composers turn to the metronome less frequently than in the first years after Mälzel’s invention. Chopin’s metronomic indications are available only up to op. 27 (and in posthumously published youthful works with op. 67 and without op.). Wagner refused these instructions beginning with Lohengrin. F. Liszt and I. Brahms almost never use them. In con. 19th century, obviously as a reaction to perform. arbitrariness, these indications again become more frequent. P. I. Tchaikovsky, who did not use the metronome in his early compositions, carefully marks the tempos with it in his later compositions. A number of composers of the 20th century, mainly. neoclassical direction, metronomic T.’s definitions often predominate over verbal ones and sometimes completely displace them (see, for example, Stravinsky’s Agon).

References: Skrebkov S. S., Some data on the agogics of the author’s performance of Scriabin, in the book: A. N. Skryabin. On the 25th anniversary of his death, M.-L., 1940; Garbuzov N. A., Zone nature of tempo and rhythm, M., 1950; Nazaikinsky E. V., On the musical tempo, M., 1965; his own, On the psychology of musical perception, M., 1972; Harlap M. G., Rhythm of Beethoven, in the book: Beethoven, Sat. st., issue. 1, M., 1971; his own, Clock system of musical rhythm, in the book: Problems of musical rhythm, Sat. Art., M., 1978; Conducting performance. Practice, history, aesthetics. (Editor-compiler L. Ginzburg), M., 1975; Quantz JJ, Versuch einer Anweisung die Flöte traversiere zu spielen, V., 1752, 1789, facsimile. reprinted, Kassel-Basel, 1953; Berlioz H., Le chef d’orchestre, théorie de son art, P., 1856 .2-1972); Weingartner PF, Uber das Dirigieren, V., 510 (Russian translation – Weingartner F., About conducting, L., 524); Badura-Skoda E. und P., Mozart-Interpretation, Lpz., 1896 ).

M. G. Harlap