Musicologica Olomucensia

Composers from the Baroque Era to present times have emphasized the importance of shaping time in music, in particular of determining the "right" tempo in the performance of any composition. But in practice conductors and performers choose very different tempos. This article discusses the liberty and the limits of the tempo option in musical performance. The important point is the distinction between the composed work of music, the "opus", and the performance of music, the "execution": The execution is an object unfolding in absolute time, while the opus indeed comprises time structure, but - if not being performed - exists outside the absolute time space. The opus is a structure defined by pitch and time relations, and these are transposable "gestalt qualities". Elements of the relational pitch space are intervals rather than absolute frequencies. The same facts are essential in the time domain, called relational time space. The opus comprises different kinds of time relations, subdivided in micro-order, the metric/rhythmic system, and macro-order, the field of proportional tempo. If an opus should be performed, it must be translated into absolute values of pitch and time. The performer is entitled to free interpretation provided that every kind of relations in pitch space and temporal order are preserved.