Tags: music time

In Beethoven's Vienna, a small metronome discovers that time can be measured, but music is not.

by Marialuisa Veneziano

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🎧 MUSIC FOR LETTURE
To accompany Master Metròn and the forbidden break, we recommend listening toAllegretto of the Symphony No. 7 in the major, op. 92 by Ludwig van Beethoven, in direct execution by Nikolaus Harnoncourt. About eight minutes built over a regular and inexorable pulsation, almost the tic tac of a large invisible metronome; and yet, above that beat, Beethoven lets music breathe, grow, change intensity and become deeply human. It is precisely the heart of our fairy tale: time can be measured, but music really begins when the measure stops being a cage.
Click on the arrow of the logo "cuffie", press play and start reading.

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In Vienna, in a winter when even snow seemed to fall with education, a thirteen-year-old boy named Matthias lived.

Matthias studied piano.

He was not a prodigy child, which he was very sorry for, especially because he read that prodigy children began generally before him and had already composed at least three concerts in the age when Matthias had learned not to overthrow the soup.

But he had a rare quality:

It was accurate.

Terribly accurate.

His scales began at the established time, his fingers fell on the keys exactly where they had to fall and, if a semi-minimum appeared on the score, Matthias treated her with almost administrative respect.

His master, Herr Weiss, often told him:

— Matthias, you play all right.

The boy smiled.

Then the second sentence always came.

— Unfortunately.

Matthias never understood how something could be correct and, at the same time, wrong.

He seemed an offense to logic.

One afternoon Herr Weiss arrived with a box.

— It's for you.

Inside there was a strange wooden object, with a metal rod swinging from one side to another.

— One metronome.

Matthias looked at him like other children would look at a white horse.

Herr Weiss loved him.

Tic.

— It's time to keep it.

The boy's eyes lit up.

Finally.

Someone who didn't say "with more feeling", "respirate the sentence", "do not rush but not slow down".

The metronome wasn't talking about puzzles.

Sixty was sixty.

Eighty was eighty.

Hundreds, thank God, were hundred and twenty.

Matthias took him to his room and spent the afternoon studying.

Tic.

Scale.

Tic.

Arpeggi.

Tic.

Studies.

Never a statement.

That night he went to bed happy.

At midnight he was woken up by a noise.

Tic.

He opened his eyes.

Tac.

He sat down.

The metronome was on his own.

— You forgot to turn me off. — said a voice.

Matthias opened his mouth.

— Did you talk?

— Of course.

— Metronomes don't talk.

— Even the pianists should not do it during the performance, yet I know a lot of them moaning.

Matthias lit the candle.

— What's your name?

The auction rose with dignity.

— Master Metròn. Time Keeper, Defender of Regularity and Natural Enemy of the Mal Giustificati Rubies.

— It's a very long name.

— At sixty beats per minute it takes exactly the time needed.

Matthias was enchanted.

He finally met someone who thought it like him.

From that day they became inseparable.

Master Metròn ruled everything.

— Eighty through the stairs.

— One hundred for the exercises.

— Sixty-six for Adagio.

Matthias obeyed.

Metròn then began to take care of the rest of the house.

He chronomed the maid while sweeping the floor.

— Too irregular.

He measured the cat's pass.

— Undisciplined.

He even tried to establish the correct duration of the embraces of Matthias' mother.

— Four beats are enough.

— But she's my mother.

— Feeling does not authorize anarchy.

When Matthias's little sister burst out laughing during dinner, Metròn shouted:

— Out of time!

— He's laughing. — protested Matthias.

— Precisely. No recognizable structure.

The boy began to think that his new friend was perhaps a bit demanding.

But at the piano the results were extraordinary.

He wasn't accelerating anymore.

He wasn't slowing down.

Almost nothing was wrong.

The day came when Herr Weiss heard him perform an Adagio.

Matthias played everything perfectly.

It ended.

The master sighed.

— Impeccable.

Matthias waited.

— And?

— He's dead.

— How'd he die?

— I don't know. You must have killed him on the second page.

Master Metròn, from the table, taught himself.

— Calunnia!

Herr Weiss didn't hear it.

Matthias is.

— I've respected every value.

— I know. — answered the master. — That's what worries me.

A few weeks later Herr Weiss brought Matthias to listen to a famous man.

Ludwig van Beethoven.

Matthias imagined it solemn, ordered and probably surrounded by a special light.

On the other hand, he found a broken man, with cards everywhere and an expression that suggested that the world had lost him a lot of time.

— Sound — said Beethoven.

Matthias sat down.

Master Metròn was placed next to the piano.

Tic.

The boy began.

No mistake.

No hesitation.

No surprise.

When he finished, Beethoven remained silent.

— Did I do something wrong? — asked Matthias.

— Unfortunately not.

The boy moved.

That was exactly Herr Weiss' sentence.

— Then it was perfect.

Beethoven looked at the metronome.

— Even a watch is perfect. I wouldn't give him a sonata.

Master Metròn lightly accelerated for indignation.

— But the metronome tells me time — protested Matthias.

Beethoven pointed out the object.

— That can tell you how long it takes a minute.

Then he slightly touched his chest.

— This has yet to decide what to do with it.

Metròn didn't speak all the way back.

It was the first time Matthias saw him offended.

That night, however, the metronome made a decision.

— I will prove to that man who is in a state that precision can make the whole world perfect.

— How?

— Putting it on time.

Before Matthias could stop him, Master Metròn began to beat.

ICT. TAC.

The sound crossed the walls.

He went down the streets.

He entered the clocks.

He went to the bell towers.

And Vienna began to follow him.

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The next morning everyone walked at the same pace.

The carriages were leaving at the same time.

The furnaces kneaded in perfect synchronicity.

The barbers lifted the razors at the same time.

The bells of the churches sounded with such precision that even the angels, if they existed, probably controlled the clock.

At first the city was enthusiastic.

Nobody was late.

Nobody interrupted anyone.

The files flowed beautifully.

The Minister of the Public Order declared that morning the most successful in the history of the Empire.

Then problems began.

A child fell.

His mother stopped to help him, but the crowd continued to walk.

ICT. TAC.

An old man tried to cross a road.

He couldn't follow the rhythm.

— Faster! — he ordered Metròn.

— I can't. — said the man.

— Time doesn't wait.

Matthias helped him reach the sidewalk.

— Master Metròn, can't you go slower?

— If I slow down for him, everyone would lose time.

— But he needs more time.

— Everyone has the same.

Matthias looked at the old man.

For the first time, that phrase didn't seem right.

In a house, a mother cradled a baby.

The baby was about to fall asleep.

ICT. TAC.

The rhythm increased.

The boy woke up crying.

Two lovers greeted themselves in front of a carriage.

He kissed her.

ICT.

— Time's up! — he ordered Metròn.

— Wait a minute.

TAC.

— I said time.

Matthias intervened:

— Maybe a kiss doesn't always last the same number of beats.

— That's why kisses never produced an efficient civilization.

The boy wasn't completely sure.

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In the afternoon the Vienna orchestra held a concert.

It was the most precise execution that had ever been heard.

All attacks together.

All exact durations.

No freedom.

No hesitation.

No mistake.

When he finished, no one applauded.

Not because it was bad.

Worse.

He didn't say anything.

Matthias watched Master Metròn.

— Did you like it?

— Technically irrepressible.

— I didn't ask you that.

For the first time, Metròn hesitated.

Tic...

The auction resumed.

— Technically irreproachable — repeated.

But with less conviction.

That night, Matthias was supposed to play in front of Beethoven.

The room was full.

Master Metròn imposed time.

— Sixty-six.

Matthias began.

ICT. TAC.

It sounded good.

Then he came to a slow sentence.

One note went up to another and seemed to ask for something.

Matthias felt she should have waited.

ICT.

Your fingers should have gone on.

They didn't.

TAC.

Matthias remained still.

Master Metròn began to shake.

— Get back!

The boy let the silence live.

One second.

Two.

Three.

— Time!

Matthias looked at the audience.

At the end of the hall he saw the old man met that morning.

It was late.

He was breathing so hard.

Matthias waited.

Until the old man looked up.

Then he started playing.

Not when he ordered Metròn.

When the sentence asked.

Music changed.

He didn't become disorderly.

She became alive.

A phrase accelerated slightly because he was in a hurry to arrive.

Another slowed down because he didn’t want to leave yet.

A break lasted long enough to allow everyone to miss it.

Matthias continued to respect the rhythm.

But he was no longer a prisoner.

Beethoven smiled.

A woman closed her eyes.

The old man at the end of the hall slowly turned back.

And Master Metròn, for the first time since his construction, stopped beating.

When the song ended, Matthias turned.

The metronome was still.

— You broke up?

— No.

— Then why did you stop?

Metròn blew.

Then he said,

— That break...

— What?

— Too long.

— Yes?

— It wasn't written.

— No.

The auction just moved.

— She was beautiful.

Matthias smiled.

— A long time ago?

— Mostruously.

Quiet.

— But beautiful.

From that day Vienna slowly returned to Vienna.

The carriages returned late.

Children ran at unpredictable speed.

The old ones crossed the streets with the necessary time.

The lovers, with great scandal of the ministry, returned to decide independently the duration of their kisses.

And Matthias continued to study every morning with Master Metròn.

Scale.

Tic.

Arpeggi.

Tic.

Hard passages.

Tic.

One day, many years later, Matthias opened an Adagio.

He was a pianist.

Master Metròn had become old. The wood was carrying small scratches and the rod oscillated with some dignified fatigue.

— Master?

— Yes?

— What time should I play it?

For the first time in his long life, the metronome replied:

— I don't know.

Matthias smiled.

Metròn added:

— I can help you find him.

— And then?

The old metronome made a small ♪.

— Then listen.

Matthias put his hands on the keyboard.

And Master Metròn ate.

Not because he had nothing to teach him.

But because he had finally learned when it was time to let him play.

The rules are precious when they teach us to become free; they become cages when they claim to choose in our place. Accuracy can teach the music to stand, but only listening, thinking and feeling can teach you where to go.

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BOX HISTORY