‘There was a time when the scholarly world was just about reduce off from sensible music-making. But for me the 2 are important companions. Now every part is lastly coming collectively – most vitally relating to tempo. I bear in mind after I first encountered Beethoven’s authentic metronome marks, and realised that many mainstream conductors have been taking a few of his music actually at half pace. Discovering how these hallowed masterpieces may and even ought to sound was a revelatory and thrilling course of.
‘With the second motion of Symphony No. 2, there gave the impression to be a normal assumption that bars needed to be subdivided into common gradual beats, even 3/8, which ought to, in fact, be performed one-in-a-bar, and 6/8 as two – by no means in six! Now we have it on report as early as Leopold Mozart explaining the way it ought to really be achieved! I apply the identical rule to the opening of Brahms’s First Symphony, and even the Tristan Prelude, albeit at a slower tempo – but it ought to undoubtedly nonetheless be felt in two.’
Roger Norrington shares his reminiscences of an extended and influential profession in BBC Music Journal’s September 2022 situation.
Photograph: James Cheadle
