I am currently studying Igor Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments and I thought it would be interesting to post my discoveries regarding the tempos that this piece has been recorded at. For those not “in-the-know”, the tempos in Symphonies have metronome markings that all relate to one another. There are three tempos:

  • Tempo 1: eighth note = 144
  • Tempo 2: eighth note = 216
  • Tempo 3: eighth note = 288

You will notice that Tempo 3 is twice the speed of Tempo 1. In Tempo 2, 2 eighth notes are equal to 3 eighth notes in Tempo 1 (3:2). The same goes for Tempo 3 to Tempo 2 (3:2). Because of this obvious interrelationship, and my upcoming performance of the piece, I wanted to get these burned into my brain! I currently have seven different recordings of Symphonies of Wind Instruments, so I set out to discover if any of these conductors were close to the written tempos. I used a “tap-tempo” feature on my iPhone “Tempo” app from Frozen Ape and began to track all three tempos in each recording. I soon realized that many of the conductors were taking a different (often more indulgent) tempo in the final chorale of the piece, so I added a 4th Tempo to see if that proved interesting. The recordings I studied were as follows:




Detroit Chamber Winds and Friends – H. Robert Reynolds, conductor







Nash Ensemble – Sir Simon Rattle, conductor







Netherlands Wind Ensemble – Thierry Fischer, conductor







United States Marine Band – Col. Timothy Foley, conductor







Prague Chamber Harmony – Libor Pesek, conductor







Berliner Philharmoniker – Pierre Boulez, conductor







Columbia Symphony Winds & Brass – Robert Craft, conductor




There are also 2 versions of Symphonies of Wind Instruments – the original 1920 publication and the revised 1947 edition.  I included both in this study since the tempo indications are the same in both revisions.  I also included information on how much each tempo deviated from Stravinsky’s markings in order to come up with a “total deviation” score.  Considering the fact that the tempo does fluctuate occasionally and the metronome “tap-method” is not exactly 100% proof positive, I included a “handicap” of about +/- 5 clicks per tempo, which brought the total deviation score down by 20.

Well without further ado here are the results…

(This is BY NO MEANS a commentary on which recording is “better” or even which one I prefer, but merely a quasi-statistical look at tempo in Symphonies)

Conductor/Ensemble SCORE

1. Timothy Foley – President’s Own Marine Band

0 *

2. Robert Craft – Columbia Symphony Winds & Brass

21

3. H. Robert Reynolds – Detroit Chamber Winds

37

4. Simon Rattle – Nash Ensemble

40

5. Thierry Fischer – Netherlands Wind Ensemble

47

6. Libor Presek – Prague Chamber Harmony

58

7. Pierre Boulez – Berliner Philharmoniker

65

*Foley’s score was actually 10, but with the handicap it goes to 0*

Opening Tempo I:
BEST:  Foley/Rattle
WORST:  Boulez/Pesek

Tempo I (Chorale)
BEST:  Foley/Boulez
WORST:  Pesek

Tempo II
BEST:  Foley
WORST: Boulez

Tempo III
BEST:  Foley
WORST:  Reynolds/Rattle

1920 Original
BEST:  Foley

1947 Revision
BEST:  Craft

Widest Margin of Deviation
Presek – Tempo I (Chorale) – nearly 40 clicks under!

Interesting things to note:
*   The Reynolds and Ratttle recording tempos are very similar
*   Pierre Boulez also has a video with the LSO – the tempos are the same…
*   ALL the conductors took the final chorale a little under tempo, though some more than others.
*   Reynolds, Rattle and Boulez took Tempo III under by about 25 clicks or so

For anyone who is interested in seeing my spreadsheet data, let me know and I can send one to you.  Any feedback is welcome.  This was not meant as strict science, but merely as a teaching tool for me as I study this incredible piece!