Authentic Sound Podcast

Authentic Sound

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The Authentic Sound Podcast, hosted by Wim Winters and Stefan Pospiech, explores the research and practical application of the Whole Beat Metronome Practice in classical music. Each episode dives into insights, discussions, and examples that bring this unique approach to life for musicians and enthusiasts alike. wimwinters.substack.com

Sep 7

Ep.43: Beethoven’s 6th Symphony (2): From Birdsong to Thunder

In Part II of our journey through Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony, Alberto Sanna and I move from the quiet flow of the brook to birdsong, village dancing, the terrifying storm, and finally the return of calm. Along the way, we explore why some of the apparently simplest passages were among the hardest for us to perform, how articulation and rhythmic weight make Beethoven’s unusually spacious tempi come alive, and how Czerny transforms orchestral colour into something astonishing on the fortepiano. The famous bird calls and storm also bring us straight back to the central question behind this entire project: what happens when we take Beethoven’s metronome marks seriously? Far from making the music static, the whole-beat approach reveals layers of rhythm, colour, timing and physical energy that are easily lost at modern speeds. A listening guide to movements II–V of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony—and to one of the most extraordinary storms ever written in music. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wimwinters.substack.com/subscribe
Aug 10

Ep.42: Maurice Ravel May Have a Serious Tempo Problem

Maurice Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante défunte presents a fascinating tempo puzzle. The first piano edition gives a metronome mark of ♩ = 80. Yet Ravel was reportedly known for playing the piece extraordinarily slowly. About a decade later, his orchestral version appeared with a very different indication: ♩ = 54. Why did Ravel change the tempo so dramatically? In this episode, we compare the scores, historical accounts, Ravel’s own piano-roll recording, and performances by later pianists. The result leads us into a much broader question: could Ravel’s Pavane preserve evidence of the transition from whole-beat to single-beat metronome practice around the turn of the twentieth century? It is a small musical mystery with potentially much larger consequences for how we understand historical tempo. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wimwinters.substack.com/subscribe
Jul 27

Ep. 41: Beethoven’s 6th Symphony: The Art of Going Nowhere

Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony seems to go almost nowhere—and that is precisely its radical power. In this first part of our whole-beat listening guide to the “Pastoral” Symphony, Alberto Sanna and I explore its opening movement. We examine how Beethoven replaces dramatic conflict with repetition, atmosphere, and the unchanging cycles of nature; why Czerny’s four-hand transcription is exceptionally difficult despite its apparent simplicity; and how whole-beat tempi restore the music’s timing, orchestral colours, polyrhythms, and sense of suspended time. Along the way, we discuss the symphony’s historical context, its place in Beethoven’s famous 1808 concert, the difference between modern and nineteenth-century listening, and the evidence that continues to challenge the conventional single-beat interpretation of Beethoven’s metronome marks. Want to listen to ‘our’ Beethoven symphonies 3 times for free? Go to Bandcamp Or buy the 10 CD box on our website. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wimwinters.substack.com/subscribe
Jul 13

Ep.40: Brahms Is Almost Always Played Too Fast. Pablo Casals Knew Why.

The discount code revealed at the end of this podcast can be redeemed here: https://www.authenticsound.org/recordings Pablo Casals knew Brahms personally. Decades later, in a recorded masterclass, he made a striking claim: Brahms did not count the quarter notes in his Allegro vivace, but the eighth notes—and that is why his music is “nearly always” played too fast. In this episode, Wim and Stefan unpack the far-reaching implications of that remark. What determines whether music feels like an Andante, an Allegretto, or an Allegro molto? Can exactly the same physical tempo produce a completely different sense of movement, depending on which note value the performer or listener follows? The discussion then turns to Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 16, Op. 31 No. 1, and Czerny’s seemingly contradictory instruction that its Allegretto finale must be played as an Allegro molto. Far from being a contradiction, it may reveal something fundamental about nineteenth-century notation, subdivision, and tempo perception. Casals’ brief demonstration takes us directly to the heart of whole-beat metronome practice: historical tempo was not simply a matter of speed, but of understanding which layer of the music carried the movement. The episode concludes with Alberto Sanna performing the Rondo from Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 16 in G major, Op. 31 No. 1. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wimwinters.substack.com/subscribe
Jun 29

Ep.39: How to Hear Beethoven’s Fifth with New Ears

When was the last time Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony knocked on your door? 00:23:11 — I. Allegro con brio01:11:48 — II. Andante con moto01:41:16 — III. Scherzo. Allegro01:58:39 — IV. Allegro Everyone knows those four notes. They may be the most famous opening in all of music. But familiarity can also become a problem: once a piece has become an icon, we often stop truly listening. In this episode, Wim Winters and Alberto Sanna return to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony with new ears. Using their recording of Czerny’s four-hand transcription as a point of departure, they explore how tempo, notation, articulation, silence, long notes, and the sound world of the fortepiano radically reshape the listening experience. This is not simply a discussion about speed. It is about character. The famous opening motive is not treated as a rushed gesture, but as something weighty, solemn, physical, and deeply human. The long silences begin to speak. The rests become part of the drama. The Andante reveals an almost heartbreaking tenderness. The Scherzo and Finale unfold not as a race toward triumph, but as a vast architectural journey from darkness into light. Along the way, Wim and Alberto discuss the 1808 Akademie concert, the shock of their whole-beat approach, the role of Czerny’s transcription, the unique response of their Viennese fortepiano, and the many places where Beethoven’s score begins to make new sense when given more time to breathe. For listeners who think they already know Beethoven’s Fifth, this episode asks a simple question: What if the most familiar symphony ever written still has something completely new to say? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wimwinters.substack.com/subscribe
Jun 15

Ep.38: The Metronome Was a Mystery to Musicians in 1887

First things first! Check out our new Kickstarter campaign (Carl Czerny School of Velocity here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/authenticsound/czernys-school-of-velocity-as-youve-never-heard-before) In this episode, we return to The Etude, the late nineteenth-century American music magazine, and look more closely at its remarkable discussions of the metronome. At first sight, the questions seem simple. Why do the tempo words printed on the metronome not match the actual tempo of musical works? Why do some of Schumann’s, Mendelssohn’s, and Chopin’s metronome marks appear too fast? And how should a pianist understand the indicated speed of difficult études? But beneath these practical questions lies a much larger problem. The answers given in The Etude often reveal a deep confusion. The writers acknowledge that nineteenth-century performance had become faster and more extreme, yet at the same time they struggle with earlier metronome marks that already seem impossible when read in the modern Single Beat way. That contradiction is central to the Whole Beat question. If musicians in the 1880s were already confused by metronome marks from earlier generations, then these sources do not solve the historical problem. They expose it. We discuss Schumann, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Godowsky, Saint-Saëns, Czerny, and the strange gap between theoretical explanations and what can actually be played at the keyboard. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wimwinters.substack.com/subscribe
Jun 1

Ep.37: Franz Liszt Never Understood Chopin’s Music?

30% off of Chopin’s Piano works vol.1 - you’ll get the code at the end of the podcast! https://www.authenticsound.org/chopin-pianoworks-vol1 Did Franz Liszt really preserve Chopin’s musical tradition, or did that tradition already begin to shift within a single generation? In this episode of the Authentic Sound Podcast, we take a close look at Arthur Friedheim’s 1916 edition of Chopin’s Études. Friedheim was not just any editor: he had studied with Anton Rubinstein and Franz Liszt, and later became Liszt’s secretary. That gave him enormous authority when speaking about the so-called Chopin tradition. But there is a problem. In the introduction to his edition, Friedheim sharply criticises Karl Mikuli’s Chopin edition, dismissing its fingerings, expression marks, pedal markings, and especially its metronome marks. Yet Mikuli was one of Chopin’s most important pupils, and his edition remains remarkably close to Chopin’s own early editions. In other words, when Friedheim attacks Mikuli, he may also be attacking Chopin’s own evidence without realising it. This raises a much larger question: what do we really mean when we speak about “tradition”? Is it a faithful preservation of the composer’s intentions, or an evolving performance practice that gradually replaces the original source while still claiming its authority? Together with Stefan, I discuss Friedheim’s claims, his appeal to Liszt and Rubinstein, the problem of Chopin’s metronome marks, and why this source is so important for understanding the break between nineteenth-century performance practice and the modern idea of authenticity. At the end of the episode, we also share Chopin’s Étude Op. 10 No. 1 in a Whole Beat reading, following Chopin’s tempo indication rather than Friedheim’s later revision. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wimwinters.substack.com/subscribe
May 25

Ep.36: Could Beethoven’s 4th Symphony Be the Best of Them All?

In this episode of our Beethoven Listening Guide, we turn to Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony, a work that is too often treated as a lighter step back after the Eroica. We argue the opposite. The Fourth is one of Beethoven’s most original symphonies: a work of astonishing contrasts, a mysterious introduction that seems to suspend tonality itself, a first movement full of joy and tension, an Adagio of extraordinary depth, and a finale whose tempo and character raise some of the most revealing questions in the whole cycle. Alberto Sanna and I also reflect on the place of this symphony within our recording journey. This was one of the performances that convinced us we had reached a new level in the project, and one of the recordings that still held up fully when we revisited it years later. Along the way, we discuss strict time, articulation, moderator and una corda effects on the fortepiano, Czerny’s extraordinary transcription, and the way Beethoven constantly changes direction without ever losing structural control. If the Third Symphony feels monumental, the Fourth proves something no less remarkable: Beethoven could return to apparent lightness without repeating himself for a single moment. This symphony may be one of the strongest cases for the claim that the “less famous” Beethoven is sometimes the most surprising Beethoven of all. Listen / orderBeethoven Symphonies CD boxBeethoven 5 on vinyl Bandcamp: https://authenticsound.bandcamp.com/ Timecodes00:05 Introduction22:37 I. Adagio – Allegro vivace1:00:21 II. Adagio1:19:28 III. Allegro vivace1:30:57 IV. Allegro ma non troppo This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wimwinters.substack.com/subscribe

The Authentic Sound Podcast, hosted by Wim Winters and Stefan Pospiech, explores the research and practical application of the Whole Beat Metronome Practice in classical music. Each episode dives into insights, discussions, and examples that bring this unique approach to life for musicians and enthusiasts alike. wimwinters.substack.com

Creator

Authentic Sound
Years Active

2026
Episodes

43
Rating

Explicit
Copyright

© Wim Winters
Show Website

Authentic Sound Podcast