#81: Inégale is often intrinsically connected to structural rubato
Section 9: Josef Suk – Meditation on an Old Czech Hymn ‘St Wenceslas’ Op.35a
It is time to deal with the seed that was planted in #65, about there ultimately being no hard distinction between inégale and tempo change. (It should be noted that this is a practical observation derived from experience, rather than an analytical or empirical one). In b.14, the timing of the local rhythmic figures in beats 2 and 3 in the inner parts — a telling lingering on each of the melodic quavers, with a spring-back in the final semiquaver — was particularly interesting because it does not slow the overall tempo, but still imbues the bar with a feeling of heaviness. We found that inégale often gave rise to a productive contradiction between ‘affect’ and the more obvious conclusions that one might extrapolate, for instance from measuring timing profiles.
This also works in the opposite direction. It is most audible in the Lento of Op.96 that large-scale tempo changes are often a result of variations that are ‘smuggled in’ at the ends of beats. Because they are felt, not counted, these moments of swing always leave ‘room’ for quick adjustments – in either direction. Sometimes that capacity is used to account for other voices. But sometimes it means taking the imaginative reins, and using the ratios of evenness to unevenness to instigate much more radical changes. (Try listening to example below, with special attention to the role played by the viola’s inflections in governing the overall speed).
The key idea here is that treating swing as the grounding of the rhythm means that both options are always available, and are also completely integrated with the overall tempo — which is ultimately just a higher-level abstraction, even a disembodied average, of the continuous musical experience.
