Here’s the third video of my long-term Beethoven cycle to mark his 250th birthday in 2020 (December). This one’s the third movement (Menuetto) to Beethoven’s 1st symphony. Hope you enjoy.
Piece: Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 21 III. Menuetto
Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven, Austria
Score Publisher: Breitkopf und Hartel
MIDI file (with score notes and basic dynamics) via Classical Archives Additional dynamics, phrasings, tempo, flexibility/emphases, interpretation, and effects by: Wayne Yang, USA
Plug-ins: NotePerformer 3 © Wallander Instruments AB
Programs used: Sibelius and Logic
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There are metronome markings on the score but they have been subject to intense debate. For me, I tend to follow metronome markings more closely when it's a work starting in the late 1800s, 20th century. Our musical impressions and thoughts are always changing and there was a huge aesthetics shift during the 1800s that may (almost certainly) had affected the music-revolutionary Beethoven if he were alive then, and still influences film composers of today (most notably John Williams). Because this symphony was completed before the shift, this unfortunately leaves us only in speculation. I use the metronome markings as a way of understanding how Beethoven may have written the piece in the context of his time, but I also believe that it is the tempo markings that holds much more weight in communicating directly and personally with us as musicians and musicians of the future with our constantly evolving aesthetics.
If you wish to hear something more scholarly accurate, my go-to conductors in this case would be George Szell, Felix Weingartner, Arturo Toscanini, and John Eliot Gardiner.
tw/hk: 貝多芬
jpn: ベートーベン
kor: 베토벤
hebrew: בטהובן
arabic: بيتهوفن
