The Too-Fast Tempo of Beethoven’s Handwritten Music

Musicologists and historians have been perplexed by Beethoven's music's tempo for a long time. Many people disregard the confusing tempo markers on his sheet music because they don't actually make any sense. The recorded pace on nearly half of his 135 original music sheets is so peculiar that most listeners merely think it's wrong.

How was it possible for one of the greatest musicians in history to be so skilled at creating and writing music while entirely misjudging his own tempo? After several years of research, it appears that the metronome, not Beethoven, was to blame for the tempo error. In other words, he most likely simply had a broken metronome or was misinterpreting it.

Beethoven's lack of a metronome when he first began producing music may have contributed to some of this issue. But after their creation, he was so taken with the concept that he went back and added tempo markings to several of his older symphonies, which seem to make no sense whatsoever and suggest the music should be played at an absurdly rapid speed. Beethoven's tempo markings would be worthless if the metronome was off or if he didn't know how to interpret the relatively new innovation, which appears to be the case.