Deryk Barker elaborates on something I alluded to in my original post:

>Scherchen's Beethoven is often incredibly fast, the first movement of his
>1958 Eroica, for example, is faster than all of the HIP conductors...

It is highly interesting that Scherchen was not the only performing
musician close to, or influenced by, Schoenberg who took Beethoven at,
or at least very close to, the prescribed metronome markings.  The Kolisch
String Quartet performed the Beethoven Quartets at Beethoven's metronome
markings.  Artur Schnabel (who as a composer wrote 12 note music) similarly
frequently played the sonatas at, or at least took movements at the
metronome tempo such as in the Hammerklavier.  Here's what Schoenberg
himself had to say about playing the Adagio of the Beethoven 9th Symphony:

   In the Adagio of the Ninth Symphony, Beethoven writes quarter-note=60.
   That's awkward.  But fortunately people have discovered that all
   Beethoven's metronome markings are wrong.  So nobody plays it at 60
   quarter notes a minute, but, at the most, at 30.  Obviously Beethoven's
   metronome marking is correct though.  And only bunglers with no
   inkling of what is involved if one is to bring out the calm and the
   cantabile of this movement without such a slow tempo - only they,
   being bunglers, are forced to take a slower tempo; and even they are
   unable, when the tempo later quickens, to avoid an allegretto character.
   But I take it as a duty to adhere throughout to the given tempo and
   preserve the cantabile at all times, never falling into scherzando,
   as has been the case at most of the performances I have heard.  About
   Metronome Markings, 1926 (quoted from "Style and Idea", trans Leo
   Black; University of California Press)

A flowing tempo accentuating the molto cantabile character, whilst
avoiding falling into a scherzando character - that is Scherchen's approach
to the Adagio in a nutshell.  I couldn't have described it better.  It also
brutally highlights the shortcomings of the mechanically metronomic period
instrument conductors who thoughtlessly follow the metronome marking: they
all lack the 'e molto cantabile' demanded by Beethoven and degenerate into
a choppy scherzando.

>Not only does he beat the metronomists at their own game, he achieves
>the virtually unthinkable in the first movement of the Pastoral, being
>faster than just about everybody else, but still sounding relaxed.

Yes, spot on - Scherchen's ability to play movements either at, or even a
shade faster than the prescribed marking is only remarkable in so far as he
does it with such complete aplomb that the results sound utterly unforced.
By way of comparison these Gardiners, Norringtons and the like just sound
too busy, too effortful and worst of all - too metronomic!  Now more than
ever before Scherchen's Beethoven speaks to our age with an immediacy
matched by few rivals.

Satoshi Akima
Sydney, Australia
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