ABSTRACT
Rubato has for centuries been linked with the idea of compensating tempo modulation. Despite the wealth of references to this idea in writings by famous performers and teachers over the ages, scholars investigating the idea have so far emphatically dismissed the notion as a myth, or at best a rationalization. In this article, I take as a starting-point these performers’ writings, and show that it is scholars rather than performers who have reduced the idea of compensation to an abstract principle. Using Debussy’s 1913 piano-roll recordings as examples, I show with the aid of empirical timing data and close listening that compensating rubato is far from a myth in the performance practice of the early twentieth century.
