ABSTRACT

The pullulation progressed, and towards the end of the eighteenth century printed music looked pitch black from hemidemisemiquavers. Great composers became addicted to smaller than the smallest divisions and subdivisions, but frequently marked the tempo so slow that the black notes were performed no faster than the semibreves of yore! Confusion, indeed. What sense was there in splitting musical quanta and then marking the tempo twice as slow? Smaller units should represent the idea of smaller duration; a thirty-second note lasting a full half-a-second is a notational monstrosity. Yet this is the tempo that Stravinsky indicates in the dythiramb of the Duo Concertant. Thus he recreates not only the spirit, but also the letter of classical music.