Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition, Sydney, 2002
C. Stevens, D. Burnham, G. McPherson, E. Schubert, J. Renwick (Eds.). Adelaide: Causal Productions.
A STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF TEMPI IN BACH’S D MINOR PARTITA
Richard Pulley
University of New South Wales
ABSTRACT
In many music writings, authors have made assertions regarding
the tempo that is appropriate for a particular work, or the tempo
that a particular performer has chosen. A performance may be
judged as being too fast or too slow; or sometimes a
chronological trend may be evident, such as “modern players
play this work faster than fifty years ago.” Often these
statements are subjective perceptions, based upon the listener’s
gut feeling, and are sometimes supported anecdotally by
reference to only a small number of performances.
This paper describes how sound recordings may be used to
objectively measure and compare different tempi throughout the
twentieth century, referring in particular to J.S. Bach’s Second
Partita in D minor for solo violin. Specifically, a simple
statistical technique will be presented to help better understand
tempo relationships.
Eighteen recorded performances spanning 65 years were
collected, including both “mainstream” and “historically
informed” performances. Segments from each movement—long
enough to be timed accurately, but short enough to eliminate
repeats that were not always followed)—were chosen for
statistical analysis. The mean and standard deviation were
calculated for all instances of each excerpt, which normalized
the timings to comparable values, rather than absolute timings
that provide no context or frame of reference with which to
compare other excerpts. The normalized results were presented
graphically.
The normalized results demonstrated clearly which
performances were average, and which were extreme in tempo.
Some chronological trends were present, though the
philosophical divide between “mainstream” and “historically
informed” performances was found to be more significant.
These differences can be subjectively perceived (within certain
limits—for more details on these issues see Epstein, 1995) as
well as objectively quantified. The statistical analysis, therefore,
provided one way of attaining objective information, and thus
an alternative approach to the more intuitive technique of tempo
assessment of recorded performance found in some writings in
aesthetics and musicology.
1. INTRODUCTION
There exist a number of different approaches for determining
appropriate tempi for particular works. For eighteenth-century
works, guidelines are contained in contemporary treatises, such
as the link between meter and tempo, the meanings of the Italian
terms such as moderato etc., and the typical speeds of dance
movements. These enable performers to ascertain a suitable
range of tempi. Despite Lester’s pessimism in his recent book,
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Bach’s Works for Solo Violin: Style, Structure, Performance1,
where he states that the above approaches provide no definitive
answers, these methods are valuable—yet to a certain extent
subjective.
This paper outlines a statistical analysis that is more objective in
determining whether a particular tempo is average or extreme. It
contains no formula to determine the correct tempo, but it
provides a way to benchmark performances so they may be
compared and their relative tempi assessed. This information
may then be used alongside traditional musicological methods.
The six Sonatas and Partitas of Johann Sebastian Bach were
first published in 1802. They have been central in a violinist’s
repertoire, and performances of these masterworks have varied
greatly from age to age and violinist to violinist. Since
Joachim’s recordings of 1903, most notable violinists have left
recordings of these works that reveal different playing styles
over the past century that may be analyzed and compared. The
D minor Partita was chosen for this study because its popularity
increases the number of CD recordings available.
2. EXCERPT SELECTION
One cannot simply take the duration given on the back of a CD
cover, and use this to determine the tempo used. These
durations include an unspecified amount of silence at the
beginning and the end of the track, and cannot be used to
compare two performances when one contains the repeats and
one does not.
Therefore, the selection of suitable excerpts was the first step. In
each movement, an excerpt was chosen that did not include any
repeated sections that weren’t universally followed. The
selections were also made to be long enough that any errors in
measurement were negligible, and a true sense of the tempo had
been established. In all cases, this was longer than 30 seconds.
See [Timing.doc] for these selections.
Each performance of each movement was digitally stored onto a
computer. Using computer software (Creative WaveStudio), the
selected excerpt was then cut out and saved as a separate file.
All leading silence was removed, and the excerpt was cut at the
beginning of the next note after the excerpt. The computer
software gave the duration for this excerpt, which was then
recorded and tabulated with the other durations (see
[Timing.doc]).
3. ANALYSIS
These numbers mean little in themselves: what is important is
their speed relative to the other performances. Otherwise, no
1
Joel Lester, Bach’s Works for Solo Violin: Style, Structure,
Performance, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 150.
108
 ICMPC7, Sydney, Australia, July 2002
objective statement can be made on how extreme a particularly
slow recording is, let alone whether 74.5 seconds for the
Allemanda excerpt is more or less extreme than a 33.5 second
recording of the Corrente.
To enable these sorts of comparisons to be made, the data were
analyzed, for each excerpt, according to the following two
statistical parameters:
1. the average (mean) duration for the performances;
2. the standard deviation for the performances.
Comparing a particular excerpt’s duration with the average
duration ( ) simply reveals whether a particular recording is
faster or slower than the average. The standard deviation (σ)
reveals how abnormal the duration of a particular recording is,
compared with the spread of measurements recorded. For
example, if all recordings but one were within 5 seconds of the
average, then a recording that was 12 seconds slower than
normal would be quite extreme, whereas if all the recordings
were within 12 seconds, then it would be less extreme.
A normal distribution was assumed (bell curve), which models
the way, over a large-enough sample, a set of values is
commonly distributed. A measure of how wide the spread of
values is, is the standard deviation:
The square of the difference between each duration value and
the mean is summed together, and then divided by n-1, where n
is the number of performances. The square root of this result
gives the standard deviation. The denominator is (n-1) because
n is only used in a formula in probability with a known
distribution, whereas n-1 is more appropriate in statistics for
estimating an unknown distribution.
A value positioned at σ = 1 on the high (faster) side of the scale
is faster than 65% of all recordings; for σ = 2, it is faster than
95%, and for σ = 3, 99.7%. This is shown graphically in
Figure 1.
Figure 1: Normal Distribution
ISBN 1 876346 39 6
So that performances could be compared not only with other
performances of the same excerpt, but across movements, each
value was normalized so that the vertical axis represented
standard deviation units. For each individual measurement x,
the corresponding y value on the graph is calculated using the
following formula:
Someone playing all movements at average speed (for the
respective movements) would have their graph horizontal at
y=0. A faster than normal tempo is above this line (y > 0), and
a slower one is below. The results are shown in Figure 2, with
the recordings split into the following categories:
1. Recordings from 1930-1960;
2. Recordings from 1960-1980;
3. Recordings from 1980-2000 (excluding “historically
informed” recordings); and
4. “Historically Informed” recordings on baroque
instruments 1977-1999.
4. INTERPRETATION
From these graphs, a number of interesting things may be
observed. First of all, one can tell at a glance which tempos
were the most extreme: the most extreme performance is clearly
Edinger’s Sarabanda, which is so slow that it lies at 3 standard
deviations below the mean duration for that excerpt. This means
that using a normal distribution, it is estimated that this would
be slower than 997 out of 1000 recordings! The second most
extreme tempo is the slowness of Szigeti’s Allemanda, followed
by the slowness of Milstein’s Corrente: both of which lie at
more than 2 standard deviations below the mean and thereby
slower than 95-99% of recordings. Of the faster recordings, the
most extreme is the Allemanda played by Heifetz in 1952,
which lies just short of two standard deviations above the mean.
One small example can show how these results may shed new
light on previous writings. In the interesting research by
Elizabeth I Field2, at one point she examines various editions of
the Giga, and notes that “as far as metronome markings are
concerned, the more recent the edition, the faster the tempo ...
older editors had consistently indicated slower tempos.”3
However, is this a proven statement, or something that is only
anecdotal? From her own research, only three editors
(Herrmann in 1900, Hambourg in 1935 and Champeil in 1959)
indicate metronome markings and one other, Jacobsen in 1961,
inserted the tempo marking Moderato. This does not provide
enough information to indicate a pattern as Field suggests, as
the majority of the editions are silent. In fact, the preface of
2
Elizabeth I Field, Performing Solo Bach: An Examination of
the Evolution of Performance Traditions of Bach’s
Unaccompanied Violin Sonatas from 1802 to the Present,
(Cornell University, 1999).
3
Field, 89-90.
109
 ICMPC7, Sydney, Australia, July 2002

Joachim and Moser’s edition of 1908 states that “the two
Gigues in D minor and E major are to be played about
moderato,” which indicates that they were of the same mind as
Jacobsen some 53 years later.
Examination of the results contained in this paper cast further
doubt on Field’s assertion. The normalized results for the Giga
show that both fast and slow performances are found in each
era. The problem with making the original assertion was that it
was based on a very small number of instances, which can
easily lead to spurious conclusions.
5. CONCLUSION
The statistical analysis described in this paper is a
straightforward, objective approach for assessing tempo. It may
be used in conjunction with more traditional methods to provide
support for (or question) statements regarding tempi that were
derived by other means.

Recordings 1930-60 Recordings 1960-80

2 2

1 1
Standard Deviation

0 Standard Deviation
0
1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5

-1 -1

-2 -2

-3 -3

Menuhin Heifetz36 Huberman Grumiaux Szeryng Suk

Heifetz52 Szigeti Milstein Ayo

Recordings 1980-2000 "Historically Informed" Recordings

2 2

1 1
Standard Deviation

Standard Deviation

0 0
1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
-1 -1

-2 -2

-3
-3

Mintz Perlman Kuijken Wallfisch

Ricci Edinger Luca Podger

Figure 2: Tempo Comparisons of 18 Violinists

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 ICMPC7, Sydney, Australia, July 2002

8. -----. Bach: Sonatas & Partitas for Violin. Vln. Henryk

5. ADDITIONAL FILES Szeryng. Deutsche Grammophon Double,
453 004-2, 1996. Recorded 1967.
[Timing.doc]
9. -----. Bach: Sonatas & Partitas. Vln. Josef Suk. EMI
6. REFERENCES Classics, CDFB 73644, 2000. Recorded 1970.

1. Epstein, D. Shaping time: music, the brain, and 10. -----. Bach: Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin. Vln.
performance. New York: Schirmer, 1995. Felix Ayo. Philips, 422 940-2, 1978. Recorded 1975.

2. Field, Elizabeth I. Performing Solo Bach: An
Examination of the Evolution of Performance Traditions
of Bach’s Unaccompanied Violin Sonatas from 1802 to
the Present. Cornell University, 1999.
3. Houle, George. Meter in music: 1600-1800.
Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press,
1987.
4. Lester, Joel. Bach’s Works for Solo Violin: Style,
Structure, Performance. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1999.
5. Philip, Robert. Early Recordings and Musical Style:
Changing Tastes in Instrumental Performance 1900-
1950. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
7. DISCOGRAPHY
Recordings are listed chronologically according to their year of
recording.
1. Bach, J. S. Partita in B minor: Bourrée & Sonata in G
minor: Adagio from Joseph Joachim: The Complete
Recordings (1903); Pablo de Sarasate: The Complete
Recordings (1904); Eugène Ysaÿe: A selection of his
recordings (1912). Vln. Joseph Joachim. Pavilion,
OPAL CD 9851, 1992. Recorded 1903.
2. -----. Bach: Sonaten und Partiten. Vln. Yehudi
Menuhin. EMI Classics, CHS 7 63035 2, 1989.
Recorded 1934-36.
3. -----. Partita No. 2 in D minor from Jascha Heifetz in
the Golden Thirties Vol. I. Vln. Jascha Heifetz.
Gramofono 2000, AB78511, 1994. Recorded 1935-
1937.
11. -----. Bach: Sonaten & Partiten. Vln. Nathan Milstein.
Deutsche Grammophon, DG 457-701-2, 1998. Recorded
1975.
12. -----. Bach: Sonatas & Partitas for Unaccompanied
Violin. Vln. Sergiu Luca. Nonesuch, FD 73030, 1990.
Recorded 1977.
13. -----. Bach: Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin. Vln.
Sigiswald Kuijken. Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, 77043-
2-RG, 1981.
14. -----. Sonaten & Partiten. Vln. Shlomo Mintz.
Deutsche Grammophon, DG 413 810-2, 1984. Recorded
1983-4.
15. -----. Sonaten und Partiten. Vln. Itzhak Perlman. EMI
Classics, 7 49483 2, 1988. Recorded 1986-7.
16. -----. Partita No. 2 in D minor from Ricci: Celebrating
Six Decades On Stage. Vln. Ruggiero Ricci. One-
Eleven, URS-92033, 1992. Recorded 1988.
17. -----. Violin Sonatas & Partitas for Solo Violin Vol. 2.
Vln. Christiane Edinger. Naxos, 8.550570, 1992.
Recorded 1991.
18. -----. Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin. Vln.
Elizabeth Wallfisch. Hyperion, CDD22009, 1997.
Recorded 1997.
19. -----. Sonatas & Partitas vol. 1. Vln. Rachel Podger.
Channel Classics, CCS 12198, 1999.

4. -----. Partita in D minor from Huberman. in Recital.

Vln. Bronislaw Huberman. Arbiter 105, 1997.
Recorded 1942.

5. -----. Sonatas & Partitas. Vln. Jascha Heifetz. BMG

Classics, 09026-61748-2, 1994. Recorded 1952.

6. -----. 6 Sonatas & Partitas for violin alone. Vln. Joseph

Szigeti. Vanguard Classics, OVC 8021/22, 1991.
Recorded 1955-6.

7. -----. Bach: Complete Solo Sonatas & Partitas for Solo

Violin. Vln. Arthur Grumiaux. Philips Duo, 2PH2 438-
736-2 , 1994. Recorded 1960-61.

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