I employed in the score of “Das Rheingold”; the music, (it was reported) lasted exactly two hours and a half at rehearsals under a conductor whom I had personally instructed; whereas, at the performances and under the beat of the official Capellmeister, it lasted fully three hours! (according to the report of the “Allgemeine Zeitung").  Wherefore, indeed, did I write “Massig”?  To match this I have been informed that the overture to “Tannhauser,” which, when I conducted it at Dresden, used to last twelve minutes, now lasts twenty.  No doubt I am here alluding to thoroughly incompetent persons who are particularly shy of Alla breve time, and who stick to their correct and normal crotchet beats, four in a bar, merely to shew they are present and conscious of doing something.  Heaven knows how such “quadrupeds” find their way from the village church to our opera theatres.  But “dragging” is not a characteristic of the elegant conductors of these latter days; on the contrary they have a fatal tendency to hurry and to run away with the tempi.  This tendency to hurry is so characteristic a mark of our entire musical life latterly, that I propose to enter into some details with regard to it.

Robert Schumann once complained to me at Dresden that he could not enjoy the Ninth Symphony at the Leipzig Gewandhaus concerts because of the quick tempi Mendelssohn chose to take, particularly in the first movement.  I have, myself, only once been present at a rehearsal of one of Beethoven’s Symphonies, when Mendelssohn conducted; the rehearsal took place at Berlin, and the Symphony was No. 8 (in F major).  I noticed that he chose a detail here and there—­almost at random—­and worked at it with a certain obstinacy, until it stood forth clearly.  This was so manifestly to the advantage of the detail that I could not but wonder why he did not take similar pains with other nuances.  For the rest, this incomparably bright symphony was rendered in a remarkably smooth and genial manner.  Mendelssohn himself once remarked to me, with regard to conducting, that he thought most harm was done by taking a tempo too slow; and that on the contrary, he always recommended quick tempi as being less detrimental.  Really good execution, he thought, was at all times a rare thing, but short-comings might be disguised if care was taken that they should not appear very prominent; and the best way to do this was “to get over the ground quickly.”  This can hardly have been a casual view, accidentally mentioned in conversation.  The master’s pupils must have received further and more detailed instruction; for, subsequently, I have, on various occasions, noticed the consequences of that maxim “take quick tempi,” and have, I think, discovered the reasons which may have led to its adoption.