Tempo and Metronome Marks

[1piano4joe]

After a little research this is what I discovered:

1. Different sources list different ranges.

Adagio was 58-97 bpm in one, 66-76 in another and 48-66 in a third.

2. Different composers have different "understandings" of them.

3. Editors put them there with little/no regard for the composers intentions.

4. It is possible to be playing at 84 bpm and still be playing Adagio, Andante, Moderato and Allegro.

5. Italian musicians and German musicians also differ like the composers. Apparently, Italians play the slower ones like Adagio slower than German musicians and the faster ones like Allegro even faster than the German musicans.

The next two I strongly agree with.

1. The Style of the piece of music or skill of the musician, dictates the range of tempi within which a performance can be "convincing" and it is this, the "conviction" of the performance that should be the judge, not rigorous attention to particular tempo markings, which are guides to "mood" than to "speed".

2. Metronome Marks should be treated like any other tempo marking - as a guide, to be ignored if the result is impractical or unmusical.

Finally, Beethoven wrote a letter to his editor that his metronome markings are only for the opening bars and not the whole piece.

I must admit I was rather naive about all this and had a somewhat different understanding as this is not what I was taught by my teacher.