In the Classical Era, and even the Baroque, the important opening and closing movements of most multi-movement works had a tempo (speed) indication of Allegro. The Italian word means at least two different things: bright and brisk, or cheerful and merry. In music, as an indication of tempo, it has come to mean fast, though it's understood not to be very fast. Note that often, in Baroque Suites, the fast opening movement, the Overture, has a few "sentences" that are to be played Largo, that is, slowly and grandly, after which the briskness takes over. Beethoven's famous Fifth Symphony, too, has such a largo opening, but evidently there is no actual special tempo indication for those opening phrases; there are only pauses after each five-note phrase.
Simply because of their slow pace, slow movements are easier to assimilate and appreciate. They're often lyrical, that is, more important for their simple beauty than their deep feeling, though just as often, slow movements are full of feeling. To avoid contradicting myself too much, let me just conjecture that the slow pace gives us more time to unravel the music in our minds, and so we tend to remember them in detail --at least the more interesting parts. Fast movements, in contrast, have more notes (as someone is famously to have remarked to Mozart), and are more distinguished by their rhythmic energy than by the beauty of their themes. But, again, many of Mozart's allegros are undeniably beautiful. In this post, I'm only trying to draw your attention to allegros because I tend to usually talk about slow music almost exclusively.
One of the pieces I have been playing incessantly in recent days (to the annoyance of my family, no doubt) is the Fugue in A minor for the organ (BWV 543, fugue). Here it is, played by E. Power Biggs. Warning: there is a commercial before the clip begins. This is a long movement, and not particularly in the same family of energetic compositions as I'm trying to describe today, so you might want to skip it. But I do love this piece, because, as I have said before, it gives the feeling of a massive spinning object; it would be ideal to represent a spinning planet, for instance, in my humble opinion, of course. But then, so would the Blue Danube.
The speed is actually slower than allegro; probably Andante, "At an easy pace." The large number of short notes makes it appear as if it is being played fast, but measured by the rate at which the harmony changes, it is quite slow. As many of you must remember, I transcribed this piece into notation, and then had it played by percussion instruments (a marimba and a xylophone, etc). It seems a little more brisk in that instrumentation, because of the rhythm track I added, with great disrespect.
But the piece that set me off thinking about Allegros in general was the last movement from the Bach violin concerto for two violins, in D minor. The movement begins with a startlingly syncopated entry by the violin section, and the energy never lets up for a moment.
The big propelling force of the movement is a series of very emphatic three-note phrases in bass that seem to go on forever. This particular performance dates, I believe from the 1970s, though in order to get past the rigorous recording identifying routine of YouTube, the person who posted it has not revealed any details of the performance. Performances of a few years later are likely to be faster, and even more energetic.
Aha, I found one. This video quality is poor, but it's nevertheless very enjoyable. (I love Ms Podger's dimples, and they're two very charming performers, all told. The announcer goes into rhapsodies at the end of the piece, so keep watching.)
Another universal favorite among Bach's Allegros is the opening movement of the Fifth Brandenburg Concerto for Flute, Violin, Harpsichord and orchestra (BWV 1050), which was enormously popular even among classical music non-lovers some decades ago. In an earlier post I linked to a performance by Richter and his troops, but here is a performance by Diego Fasolis, with Il Barrochisti. Equally good, from an earlier era, is the performance by Trevor Pinnock and the English Concert, possibly the best all-round performance of all six Brandenburg Concertos.
From the Symphonic repertoire, an allegro that comes to mind is the opening movement of the Eroica Symphony by Beethoven. There are two crashing opening chords, followed by a crazy whirlwind of sheer energy. When I was a kid, I loved the Fifth Symphony, but if I had to do it all over again, I would probably be persuaded to "favorite" the Eroica (Symphony No. 3 in E Flat).
Symphonies, as you will probably agree, get their fame because of the drama contained in them, and for this reason even a movement marked Allegro is likely to have its stops and starts, which detracts from the continuous sort of momentum that I'm trying to bring to your attention here. The last movements of symphonies are typically marked presto, which means very fast, and of course these are more likely to be good choices for playing loud on a bright sunny day, to knock the socks off your neighbors. (Or listen to with your headphones, and perforate your eardrums.) But, you know, both Mozart and Bach managed to write Prestos that were quite sedate and well-behaved. This is absolutely not what I'm looking for, but it is true nevertheless.
Come to think of it, the last movement of Mozart's Concerto No. 23 in A major is marked Allegro Assai (very fast, but obviously not as fast as presto), and is just the sort of Allegro that I'm trying to bring to your attention! Can you imagine being a fantastic pianist, playing this piece with a smile at the audience? How does he do it, everyone is thinking, while you're thinking, they have no idea how long it took.
The only clip of this movement I could find free of advertisements is this one. The playing is great, and it illustrates what I was trying to describe very well. A good piece played moderately competently is all I ask for. (There is a possibility that the actual performance is by Chick Corea, or the performer may have borrowed them from Chick Correa's performance on CD. The video is so bad that I can't tell.)
A well-known Presto is the overture to The Marriage of Figaro. (I inserted the first page from the score at right, just for fun.) The recording featured by Steve Smalin is among the best out there: fast and incisive playing by some anonymous orchestra. The unison introduction is now legendary, and widely copied; not very successfully, in my opinion. I have to admit that this movement almost defines what Presto is in my mind, though other Mozart Prestos (or is it presti?) come very close.
The last movement of Beethoven's delightful Sonata Pathetique is one of my favorites, and anyone who has kept reading this blog knows this well! I'm a dog of few tricks, and keep putting those few tricks before my readers repeatedly, hoping that they will connect with them eventually!
Well, that's all I have for the moment; I have to go administer a test to a bunch of reluctant undergraduates. (When I tell them that I loved tests as a kid, they look at me as though I've got a hole in my head. Once I had come to terms with the fact that I just didn't do brilliantly on tests, I began to enjoy them, especially since I realized that I could actually figure some of the material out in real time, as they say. Figuring something out in real time, of course, is something my students would almost never try to do, except for a few reckless souls, who don't really have a prayer.)
I try to explain to everyone that education is about trying to understand the world, and understand people, even if you start out despising them. As a youth I could never quite get why some of the adults I so admired just looked at the world with rose-tinted glasses. Their glasses were so utterly and invariably half-full (as opposed to being half empty, that is) that I just wanted to strangle them. But here I am, doing the same thing. Make no mistake: I know precisely how the world falls short of where and what it should be, but I still mostly love it. And loving music and art and theatre, of course, is part of embracing the whole crazy pile of junk our planet and its inhabitants has become! YouTube and Facebook, and all the things we love to hate are all part of the fascinating kaleidoscope of maniacal foolishness that is the world in which we live.
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