Von Bulow gives the Chopin metronomic marking.
It remained for Riemann to make some radical changes. This
learned and worthy doctor astonished the musical world a few
years by his new marks of phrasing in the Beethoven symphonies.
They topsy-turvied the old bowing. With Chopin, new dynamic and
agogic accents are rather dangerous, at least to the peace of
mind of worshippers of the Chopin fetish. Riemann breaks two bars
into one. It is a finished period for him, and by detaching
several of the sixteenths in the first group, the first and
fourth, he makes the accent clearer,--at least to the eye. He
indicates alla breve with 88 to the half. In later studies
examples will be given of this phrasing, a phrasing that becomes
a mannerism with the editor. He offers no startling finger
changes. The value of his criticism throughout the volume seems
to be in the phrasing, and this by no means conforms to accepted
notions of how Chopin should be interpreted. I intend quoting
more freely from Riemann than from the others, but not for the
reason that I consider him as a cloud by day and a pillar of fire
by night in the desirable land of the Chopin fitudes, rather
because his piercing analysis lays bare the very roots of these
shining examples of piano literature.
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