In Life, as in Music, Tempo is Crucial
For earlier composers, the correct tempo always seemed very obvious, perhaps even self-evident, so they were content with simple general indications. Haydn and Mozart, for example, used the term “andante” to mean somewhere between “allegro” and “adagio”. They believed that was enough. Bach did not specify the tempo at all, which in strictly musical terms is perhaps the most correct solution. He probably said to himself: “Whoever does not understand my themes and figuration, and whoever fails to sense their character and expression, will not even be able to understand the Italian term ‘tempo’.”
It is interesting how music is connected to our lives and how certain characteristics find their way into our everyday life. For instance, the first thing that distinguishes a conductor is his or her ability to always find the right tempo (and even an ordinary person will be most successful when he or she finds the right tempo for his or her decisions). It is from the choice of tempo that we can determine whether or not the conductor has understood the composition. Furthermore, good musicians always say that the choice of the correct tempo includes consideration of the correct expression and phrasing, and vice versa. In the case of the conductor, the correct choice of phrasing and expression involves the correct choice of tempo. Understanding tempo always comes to us through love.
Musical tempo is immersed in a constant flow of feelings. It is imbued with the past, which is already clinging to and giving rise to the present, while the latter bristles with the expectations of the approaching future. Very little is in fact said about the synchronicity of music, which is essentially a symphony of voices. When we decide to attend a concert at the Philharmonic, we should be aware that the orchestra is always surrounded by the spirits of Brahms, Bruckner, Mahler and many other composers and performers who have left their mark in the history of a certain period. The concert hall captures other ideas as well – not only musical ones – which are magically conveyed to the audience. Everything becomes one. Spirit and work merge, as do existence and music.
It is no doubt true that sound is the most direct form of communication with the world, an almost primitive form of communication. It opens the path to our inner world, to our identity, where the feelings of the composer literally merge with the listener’s self. It is from this germ that a concert, a symphony, an experience in a concert hall emerges. The right word could even be catharsis: it is a descent into the abyss of introspection, which is actually an ascent towards the stars of shared emotions, contradictions and contemporary journeys, during which the user is destined to be transformed.
Music becomes an arrow of time, which compresses and stretches, but cannot go back. Perhaps this is another reason why the tempo that the composer, the conductor, the artist or the individual chooses is so crucial: more than any other word, it is tempo that, with the precision of a barometer, describes how we feel and what we want to communicate.
