Comments on ‘‘Patterns of expressive timing in performances of a Beethoven minuet by nineteen famous pianists’’ [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 88, 622–641 (1990)]

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Abstract
The Beethoven pulse forms microstructure through a combined time and amplitude warp, thought to be meaningful and desirable for performing his works. In an attempted search Repp [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 88, 622–649 (1990)] measured only time aspects of the pulse, but not those of amplitude, analyzing performances by 19 famous pianists of Beethoven’s Minuet Op. 31, No. 3. The Beethoven pulse appeared clearly on level 2—the level on which observation was possible. Structural properties could not in any known way account for the numerical proportions observed. A computer performance supplied to Repp by the author, prepared for a different experiment, should not have been compared directly by subjects with the pianists’ performances. It only had partial microstructure, and lacked other expressive factors that could have readily been incorporated. The Beethoven pulse should appear in salient, but not necessarily in all sections of the piece. In this instance the Beethoven pulse was appropriately found in the minuet (but not in the trio).

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