Rhythm (rhuthmós in Greek, meaning harmony, proportionality, from the word rhéo¯, to flow) is the continuous division of a process, a phenomenon, into units mutually related by meaningful links in respect of time; their accented and unaccented regular repetition in a work. The opposite of an identical, rationally calculated and measured bar, in the form of an exact repetition of the same. “If we take […] the purely temporal aspect of musical sound, we have to discuss (a) the necessity of time’s being in general the dominant thing in music; (b) the bar as the purely mathematically regulated measure of time; (c) rhythm which begins to animate this abstract rule by emphasizing some specific beats and subordinating others.”Footnote 1

Of all the elements of music, rhythm has aroused the most controversy. The arguments have arisen, and continue to arise, between those who understand it only as a phenomenon following the dictates of the metronome and those who have sought to interpret it as a musical phenomenon with its own rules of organisation. The essential elements of rhythmical structures, which give temporal movement a periodical character, should be associated with the rhythmic organisation of poetry used even in ancient Greece. In ancient poetic composition, arsis was the strong part of a foot, and thesis the weak part, without a dynamic ictus (the Latin ictus meaning stroke, stress). Applying this to the rhythmics of musical structures, arsis would be the strong part of the bar or structure, and thesis, the weak, unstressed, non-foundational part—like a drop in energy. This holds true also for agogic modulations of movement. Effective tension is expressed through the relationship with the structures of the sequence of sounds; the tension then creates a sense of the duration of the elements of the sequence. These durations must be determined not from outside (i.e., only from the marked length of the notes) but from the sound organisation conditioned by the intonation of the structure.

The main error in the superficial practice of performance is the identification of meter with rhythm. It seems this has always been popular, since François Couperin stated: “We confuse measure with what is called cadence. Measure is defined as the number and length of time beats and cadence is, properly, the spirit and soul which must be added to it.”Footnote 2 In French, “cadence” is a very broad concept, which embraces bar, rhythm and tempo. In Couperin’s view, cadence is not a static (metric) but an energetic (dynamic) concept. Conventional music theory understands cadence as an act of harmony: T-D-T or T-SD-T; also as a soloist’s solo in the pieces of the concerto genre (the Italian cadenza meaning “end”). This is similar to cases where intonation and modulation are perceived in only one aspect—that of tuning and variation of tonality. Unfortunately, in the everyday practice of performers (again with rare exceptions), rhythm is organized by bars, while the character of musical movement is determined by the unit of the metric measure. Meter and rhythm thus become merely the sounding of the notes according to their marked duration. The movement of the music, organised without intonation, does not change.

The model of the strong-weak part of the bar in music was legitimised in the Baroque era by following the metric scheme of ancient versification mentioned above, which we use even now as the main principle of the rhythmic accentuation of musical structures.

Rhythm […] is always the constructive and organizing principle of “breathing” and of the regularity of motion, but it is closely fused with the elements of music. It always constructs and organizes something, but, in general, does not systematize. This “something” is intonation, but concrete intonation—vocal and instrumental melody or a succession of chords. […] Actually, there is no unintoned rhythm in music and cannot be. Music, as a rhythmic scheme or construction is a visual concept, if not an abstraction.Footnote 3

Meanwhile, the bar is the unit of musical meter composed of various accents according to their strength. This is a construct, composed of a binary opposition or a strong and weak part of the bar.

When talking about musical rhythm, we need to clarify this question: what are the forces which operate to make a pure and simple sonic phenomenon musical? The explanation of this phenomenon leads us to suggest that the transformation of the sonic phenomenon into a musical one depends on our feeling for the tonal structures which gives them affective meaning and which belongs to our hearing (musical hearing, and not just hearing related to the sound pitch). This feeling gives a sense of pulling of the sounds towards each other.

The bar, rhythm, and harmony are, taken by themselves, only abstractions which in their isolation have no musical worth, but can acquire a genuinely musical existence only through and within the melody as the essential features and aspects of the melody itself.Footnote 4

The poetic element in music, the language of the soul […]—this alone is melody.Footnote 5

It must be acknowledged that tempo is not only speed but also an energetic quality of musical movement.

An example of such energetic quality is Rondino by Jean Sibelius (Op. 81, No. 2), interpreted by the author at [link] [1:49] (recorded in 2007 in the studio of Lithuanian Radio, performed by Juozas Rimas, oboe, and Alfreda Rimienė, piano).

The cadence-like quality (intonational quality) of the rhythm of music frees it from being mechanical. Intonational analysis of the work to be performed is the best aid to organic interpretation. Thus, everything in music is intonational; everything is cadence-like (in the sense of Couperin’s concept). The metric organisation of rhythm does not negate its intonational dynamism. The meter provides a basis, a starting point for dynamic movement. Meter defines the character of the bar and its basic structure.

Music is like the foundation, while the spirit is the superstructure. This is already rhythm—movement with a character determined by intonation. Here it is like body and soul, matter and idea, sign and meaning. Meter and rhythm are binary concepts.

The animated rhythm [of the melody] is to be distinguished from the abstractness and regular and strict return of the rhythm of the beat. In this connection music has a freedom similar to poetry’s and an even greater one. […] [If] the melody keeps strictly in its rhythm and parts to the rhythm of the beat, then it readily sounds humdrum, bare, and lacking in invention. What may be demanded in this connection is, in brief, freedom from the pedantry of metre and the barbarism of a uniform rhythm. For deficiency in greater freedom of movement, along with dullness and carelessness, readily leads to what is gloomy and melancholy.Footnote 6

Musical time is alive, and is characterised by appropriate modulation and flexibility. It is different each time, but without changing the structure which it realises intonationally. This is the main principle of creative interpretation. Whereas interpretation as an activity should be founded on a certain ethic (from the Greek éthos, meaning custom, habit, manner). That is, on a certain ability which is also a form of behaviour. Conscious that our culture is founded on the principles of antiquity and Christianity, it is helpful to know why musical “ethos” (as a system of relating to music) was for the Greeks so important. “Why is it that, of all things which are perceived by the senses, that which is heard alone possesses moral character [éthos]?” asks Pseudo-Aristotle in “The Problems.”

For music, even if it is unaccompanied by words, yet has character; whereas a colour and an odour and a savour have not. […] Because that which is heard alone has movement. [Rhythms and tunes are] movements, as actions also are. Efficient action [enérgeia] is already moral and determines character.Footnote 7 This audible movement is also the ancient axiom of musical éthos.Footnote 8

Unfortunately, mass culture, increasingly widespread and entrenched, often reproduces rhythms which are tasteless, primitive and harmful to a person’s physical and spiritual development. Such is the “secret” of pop music, which propagates primitive rhythms and vibrations. “Modern physics and neurophysiology indicate that pop music upsets the balance of resonant brain structures, generating unexpected mental reactions, usually of a negative character. At the same time, classical music—Mozart, Bach and Beethoven—based on more complex rhythms and consonances, has a beneficial effect not only on humans, but also on many other organisms, since its effect coincides favourably with the functioning of the resonant structures of the brain and other organs.”Footnote 9

Wanda Landowska, the famous harpsichordist, offered a focused reply to these questions:

What is rhythmic precision? It is the exact sense of the time value of notes and rests. What is measure? It is the distribution and organization of these time values among themselves.

[…] It is said: “Tempo is justice”. Is there one tempo that can be the only right one? I believe that each work bears in itself its own tempo as well as its own ritardandi and allargandi. Discovering them has to be achieved through comparisons, research, and also intuition.Footnote 10

However, both rhythm and tempo are determined by the intonation of the work, that is, its spirit—what it is, and what about it needs to be expressed, having felt that spirit through the whole duration of the work, and this too is called rhythmic playing.

Today we value bar lines so much; yet they do not represent an improvement, but rather a simplification for the benefit of the ever growing number of amateurs. It was to facilitate their reading that the most beautiful music was ingeniously cut up into small squares within which the most capricious traits were forcibly enclosed. […]. In his Essay, Karl Philipp Emanuel Bach praises unmeasured improvisation: “The metric signature is in many […] cases more a convention of notation than a binding factor in performance. It is a distinct merit of the fantasia that, unhampered by such trappings, it can accomplish the aims of the recitative at the keyboard with complete, unmeasured freedom”.Footnote 11

Our activity in music is the manifestation of our consciousness through melody (from the Greek melo¯dia, meaning song, air, singing; a musical thought presented in a melodic line by a single voice). “Melody will always be the purest expression of human thought.”Footnote 12 In melody, musical consciousness registers what it wants to distinguish. It is melodic rhythm which expresses the true accents of the music, which may also coincide with the meter, but are connected through their origin with the movement of the melody, and thus with intonation.