Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Discussion: Standard Concert Tempos?

So reading this on another thread got me thinking about Feux Follets and how a standard tempo, or "concert tempo", has developed for this piece (about 168 or 176). Recently on youtube, I listened to the Cziffra recording of Feux Follets.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfVnSt7Kvz8

I was surprised to hear the relatively slow tempo (about 144) that Cziffra, who has already proven that he possesses prodigious technique, takes it. I also found that I liked Cziffra's slower tempo better. I've never heard anybody else take the piece at this slower tempo (while yes, it is an etude, it does sound nice slower too).I think that many more people would attempt a piece like Feux Follets if it was considered okay to play it at Cziffra's tempo. Now, I am not saying that this piece needs to go sluggishly slow (for example, 100) but just slightly slower. So do people feel pressured to play this piece, or any other pieces for that matter, at the faster tempo just so others don't think poorly of the performer's technique?

I'd have to say that there are some gorgeous and ingenious things in FF that are missed at faster tempo.

Slower speeds like this are justified, although, unfortunately, the omnibus-like passages, also ingeniously constructed in the Mazeppa, cannot be played more slowly without losing momentum. I highly recommend analyzing each of those passages and comparing them. You'll be surprised!

Similarly, Ricordanza demonstrates Liszt's workmanship in developing the whole piece from the 3-note and 2-note motives introduced in the opening passagework. FF does the same. It's remarkable music, intellectually and organically synthesized.

Start digging! (Pardon me for thread hijacking.)

You're only responsibility is to get the composer's message across. How you do that is fairly immaterial.

Yes, I think pianists do often get caught up in a "faster is better" mentality in regards to certain pieces like Feux-Follets. It's only marked as an allegretto, after all, but I can't recall any performance I've heard that really sounds like an allegretto (at least not intentionally). It's as if there's a class of piece that have become tacitly understood to be marked "as fast as possible". Ravel's Ondine and Scarbo, Schumann's Toccata, Debussy's L'isle Joyeux, Beethoven's Waldstein, the last movement of Prokofiev's 7th, and any number of Scarlatti sonatas have all unhappily fallen into this weird little vortex of piano culture. Sometimes, when thinking about stuff like this, it seems like pianists aren't musicians at all, but are instead an obscure branch within the performing traditions of circus and vaudeville.

I think people are just used to hearing certain pieces at one tempo, they never dare to play it any slower.

Feux follets may be marked "Allegretto", but 32nd notes marked "leggiero" tend to pass quickly- it is very much the appearance on the printed page which gives the clue. Liszt could just have easily notated 16th notes at Presto, but the underlying pulse would not have been quite the same.

I see this in organ and church music all the time.

Well I surmise I had it wrong all along... I was just trying to play this piece too fast. And whilst I'm at it, let's go back to Chopin's Op 10 #4 and see what the juries say. Who knows, they might fancy a relaxed tempo... particularly if the coffee is not fresh.

As Raymond Lewenthal said regarding Alkan (to this affect): "You are too slow, not Alkan." Examples of Ravel, Debussy, Prokofiev and Scarlatti confirm this. wr's mention of Beethoven's Waldstein probably indicates he had a miserable encounter with Józef Hofmann's free-for-all with the Op 53.

Crikey, with due respect, that's over the top. (But of course Hofmann -from the dead- speaks so highly of my pianism.)