"Ta ta ta, lieber Mälzel", four-voice canon WoO 162
Composition
Probably a forgery by Anton Schindler, written down not before 1843
The 'Mälzel Canon' of 1812 is famous for featuring the theme from movement 2 of the Eighth Symphony. It was long thought that Beethoven wrote it for his friend, the inventor Johann Nepomuk Mälzel, to honour him for the invention of the metronome. Today we know better: the canon was not written by Beethoven at all. WoO 162 is just another figment of the imagination of Anton Schindler, who later attributed it to Beethoven.
In the final months of Beethoven's life Schindler functioned as an unpaid secretary and nurse. After his death, he felt that his contact with Beethoven made him the supreme authority in all questions regarding the composer's biography. He also considered himself the custodian of Beethoven's legacy in matters of performance. One of his main concerns was the question of tempo, for the wrong tempo, he felt, could distort a work's true character, or what he deemed that true character to be. These matters were confused by Beethoven's own metronome marks, which were not always feasible in performance or contradicted Schindler's own perception of tempo. He particularly objected to the excessively fast tempos chosen by his contemporaries, especially Felix Mendelssohn. To bolster his argument for slow tempos, Schindler published the so-called 'Mälzel Canon' in Hirschbach's Musikalisches Repertorium in February 1844, taking its theme from the second movement of Beethoven's Eighth and spelling out its ties to Mälzel's metronome in the text. There are no authentic handwritten sources for the piece. The circumstances of its genesis were described by Schindler himself in various publications, albeit with conflicting information that already puzzled his contemporaries. To substantiate its authenticity he even went so far as to forge entries in Beethoven's conversation books, thereby providing 'firm evidence' that his version of events was true. Today scholars universally attribute the 'Mälzel Canon' to Schindler and not to Beethoven. (J.R.)
In the final months of Beethoven's life Schindler functioned as an unpaid secretary and nurse. After his death, he felt that his contact with Beethoven made him the supreme authority in all questions regarding the composer's biography. He also considered himself the custodian of Beethoven's legacy in matters of performance. One of his main concerns was the question of tempo, for the wrong tempo, he felt, could distort a work's true character, or what he deemed that true character to be. These matters were confused by Beethoven's own metronome marks, which were not always feasible in performance or contradicted Schindler's own perception of tempo. He particularly objected to the excessively fast tempos chosen by his contemporaries, especially Felix Mendelssohn. To bolster his argument for slow tempos, Schindler published the so-called 'Mälzel Canon' in Hirschbach's Musikalisches Repertorium in February 1844, taking its theme from the second movement of Beethoven's Eighth and spelling out its ties to Mälzel's metronome in the text. There are no authentic handwritten sources for the piece. The circumstances of its genesis were described by Schindler himself in various publications, albeit with conflicting information that already puzzled his contemporaries. To substantiate its authenticity he even went so far as to forge entries in Beethoven's conversation books, thereby providing 'firm evidence' that his version of events was true. Today scholars universally attribute the 'Mälzel Canon' to Schindler and not to Beethoven. (J.R.)
