Tempo trend by recording year

In Beethoven's Symphonies 1–8, how the gap between coda tempo and metronome mark differs per decade of recording year (new in 1.4).

Formula: Slope of (measured tempo − mark) on recording year within movements, × 10. One intercept per movement removes differences between marks. Recording year = midpoint of the recording dates (the date column). Standard error clustered by conductor (CR1); 95% interval from 2,000 conductor-bootstrap resamples (fixed seed). Rows: 36 conductors × 33 movements = 1,188.
How to read it: +0.85 bpm per decade (SE 0.40; 95% interval +0.16 to +1.72): later cycles are observed together with a smaller gap to the marks (less slow). With the first recording year: +0.83; a simple regression of the 36 conductor medians: +0.99. With one intercept per performance style (Romantic, HIP-influenced, HIP) the slope falls to +0.26 (−0.56 to +1.29) and the interval includes 0 — the six HIP cycles were recorded between 1985 and 2006, so year and style overlap.
Caveats: Each conductor has one cycle, so differences between conductors and differences between recording years cannot be separated in these data. The slope describes that conductors who recorded later are observed to play less slowly; it does not measure an influence of the year. Cycles recorded over several years use the midpoint (the year column is the release year and is not used). Tempi are the original authors' single coda sample; Symphony 9 is excluded. The 36 cycles are not a random sample.

RomanticHIP-influencedHIP

HIP: historically informed performance (period instruments and practice).

One dot per conductor (cycle). The dashed line has the within-movement slope (+0.85 bpm per decade), drawn through the conductors’ mean point. Each conductor comes with one recording period, so the slope cannot be read as an influence of the year.

Model	n	Conductors	Tempo trend by recording year	SE	SE type	95% low	95% high
within movement (midpoint year)	1188	36	+0.85	0.40	conductor clusters	+0.16	+1.72
within movement (first year)	1188	36	+0.83	0.38	conductor clusters	+0.16	+1.66
within movement + style intercepts	1188	36	+0.26	0.49	conductor clusters	−0.56	+1.29
conductor medians, simple regression	36	36	+0.99	0.34	classical OLS	+0.22	+1.90

Conductor	Style	Recording dates (date)	Midpoint	n	Median
Mengelberg, Willem	Romantic	1940	1940.0	33	−7.0
Furtwängler, Wilhelm	Romantic	1947-1954	1950.5	33	−16.5
Toscanini, Arturo	Romantic	1949-1952	1950.5	33	−7.0
Karajan, Herbert von	Romantic	1951-1955	1953.0	33	−12.0
Cluytens, André	Romantic	1957-1960	1958.5	33	−14.0
Walter, Bruno	Romantic	1958-1959	1958.5	33	−15.0
Klemperer, Otto	Romantic	1960	1960.0	33	−17.0
Szell, George	Romantic	1956-1964	1960.0	33	−12.7
Leinsdorf, Erich	Romantic	1961-1969	1965.0	33	−11.0
Jochum, Eugen	Romantic	1967-1969	1968.0	33	−15.0
Böhm, Karl	Romantic	1969-1972	1970.5	33	−17.5
Ferencsik, Janos	Romantic	1969-1976	1972.5	33	−16.0
Masur, Kurt	Romantic	1972- 1975	1973.5	33	−12.7
Bernstein, Leonard	Romantic	1977-1979	1978.0	33	−11.7
Kegel, Herbert	Romantic	1982-1984	1983.0	33	−14.0
Hugget, M. and Goodman, R.	HIP	1982-1988	1985.0	33	−7.0
Haitink, Bernard	Romantic	1985-1987	1986.0	33	−12.0
Hickox, Richard	HIP-influenced	1984-1988	1986.0	33	−13.5
Muti, Riccardo	Romantic	1985-1988	1986.5	33	−10.0
Wand, Günter	Romantic	1985-1988	1986.5	33	−12.0
Hogwood, Christopher	HIP	1985-1989	1987.0	33	−7.0
Solti, Georg	Romantic	1986-1989	1987.5	33	−10.0
Brüggen, Frans	HIP	1984-1992	1988.0	33	−8.0
Norrington, Roger	HIP	1987-1990	1988.5	33	−6.0
Polizzi, Antonino	Romantic	1986-1994	1990.0	33	−12.0
Harnoncourt, Nikolaus	HIP-influenced	1990-1991	1990.5	33	−10.0
Gardiner, John Eliot	HIP	1991-1994	1992.5	33	−2.0
Davis, Colin	Romantic	1995	1995.0	33	−16.0
Gielen, Michael	HIP-influenced	1997-2000	1998.5	33	−8.0
Abbado, Claudio	HIP-influenced	2000-2001	2000.5	33	−9.0
Rattle, Simon	HIP-influenced	2002	2002.0	33	−8.0
Immerseel, Jos Van	HIP	2005-2007	2006.0	33	−6.0
Pletnev, Mikhail	Romantic	2007	2007.0	33	−4.0
Chailly, Riccardo	HIP-influenced	2007-2009	2008.0	33	−1.0
Tremblay, Jean-Philippe	HIP-influenced	2009	2009.0	33	−7.0
Barenboim, Daniel	Romantic	2011	2011.0	33	−15.0

Source

Martín-Castro & Ucar (2020), "Conductors' tempo choices shed light over Beethoven's metronome", PLOS ONE 15(12): e0243616. Track lengths and coda tempo estimates for 36 conductors' complete Beethoven symphony cycles (1,332 tracks), plus metronome marks and bar counts from the scores. R package bmetr. https://github.com/Enchufa2/bmetr · License: MIT

beethoven_symphony_coda_tempo.csv beethoven_symphony_duration_ratio.csv beethoven_symphony_conductor_summary.csv beethoven_symphony_movement_summary.csv beethoven_symphony_marks.csv beethoven_symphony_recordings.csv beethoven_symphony_tempo_trend.csv beethoven_symphony_conductor_year.csv