EXCERPTS 101: TEMPI

[KevinMadden]

Well speaking of Symphonic Metamorphoses:

I have Szell and Cleveland playing the Scherzo at 92 ish
I have Chicago playing it at 82 (sadly I did not label the conductor when I imported the CD)
Gene Pokorny plays it at about 90 on his excerpt CD
and I played it with my College Wind Ensemble at near 100


I would say 96 to be a good place for the Metamorphoses

[KevinMadden]

And for the Ride:

CSO Section excerpt CD has it at 74
Another Chicago from this collection: http://www.amazon.com/First-100-Years-S ... =8-1-spell is playing it at 120
Szell and Cleveland has it at 92
Pokorny has it at 84

The average of these four would be 92 or about where Cleveland is playing it. I agree with that Tempo

[MileMarkerZero]

For me, The Ride needs to be at the upper end...somewhere between 96 and 108. It just doesn't seem nearly as exciting at a slower tempo, although any auditionee should be ready for something as slow as 80.

Here's one for you: Mahler 1, 3rd mvmt. - a few samples:
Bernstein, NY - 72
Boulez, Chicago - 58
Bernstein, Concergebouw - 76
Abbado, Berlin - 64-66
Solti, Chicago - 60
Slatkin, St. Louis - 69
Walter, LSO - 72
Walter, Columbia - 60

Better have the vital capacity of a blue whale at some of those slower tempi...

[Mark]

Two standard F tuba excerpts that seems to be all over the map in tempo are Bydlo and the Hungarian March. Sometimes too slow, many times too fast.

[The Jackson]

I'm not sure how the music publishing business works (either today or how it was in "the time of the greats"), but was it not uncommon for things like metronome markings to be added not by composers or orchestrators but by publishers and editors? When we are putting some weight to these number markings as well as "the intent of the composer" isn't this something else to keep in mind? I can definitely imagine a situation where a composer would be indifferent about a metronome marking and one was printed on the music by the publisher for the sake of a conductor not familiar with the work.

I really enjoy the place where I am today with one foot in the composing and another in tuba-playing. I am not the kind of composer who will bring the hammer down if a performer of my work strays from my metronome marking. The only reason I print them on my scores and parts is for the situation I mentioned earlier - for players not familiar with the work or for when I can't be their to aid them. That's it. It's not that big of a deal. The music does not come from the ink nor does it come from the composer. It comes from the players, and I think we've come too far to become slaves to ink (that might not even be reliable!).

What's the point of playing music if you just play it like "so-and-so" played it in the past? If I wanted to hear Gene Pokorny play the Ride with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, I'd fly there or I'd get a recording. Aren't we all different and unique like snowflakes? Yeah, sure, study of "famous" or "big-name" recordings is great and all, but should that change anything? What's really important is that I, as a performer, know what I want to do with a piece. If I want to play the Ride at this pace, I should conciously know that and do that because, to me, that's how the music should go. End of story. It doesn't matter how "so-and-so" does it, it doesn't matter how my teacher does it, the only thing that matters is how the music is supposed to go, in my humble opinion, as a performer of music.

Now, if you will excuse me, I require a ladder to climb down from this soapbox.

[The Jackson]

I think I'm not reading you correctly. With the aid of this discussion of tempo markings, should auditioners play excerpts "like the record" (in the manner of a one-tubist cover band of "XYZ" SO)? And that when full-orchestra performance time comes, THEN it's something completely original in terms of tempo with the music director at the helm?

[tubalex]

these have worked for me:
Ride: 88
Hungarian March: 92
Meisteringer: 104
Prokofiev 5: 70 with rubato
Sym. Met 2nd mvt: 86
Heldenleben battle scene: 132
Mahler 1: 64
Bear solo: 69

...but I really should point out that in Perantoni's rep classes he was constantly asking us to do things differently, from week to week and often minute to minute in class and always saying "now, I'm the conductor", pointing out that you have to have your version, with your stamp on it, but in order to be a hire-worthy musician you must be able to latch on to someone else's ideas and make them sound like they are your own. My most successful auditions have all involved the committee/ensemble asking me to do something differently and my being able to make it sound like I had already thought of it and practiced it that way.