The modern taste is for a slower musical tempo

SIR – Claims that classical music has speeded up are not new (Letters, October 8 and 9). But the truth is that much music is now played slower than was originally intended.

Brahms’s markings on his Second Piano Concerto indicate a far faster tempo than is now normal, and his symphonies have slowed considerably since Felix Weingartner and Arturo Toscanini first recorded them.

Mahler took eight minutes to conduct the Adagietto from his Fifth Symphony, while Bernard Haitink takes 14. Schumann wanted his Traumerei played at 100 crotchets per minute: Clara Schumann reduced it to 80, Alfred Brendel favoured 69, some pianists now take it at 50. If anything, it seems that modern audiences appreciate slower performances. Graham Chainey Brighton, East Sussex

SIR – Sir Thomas Beecham said that if you boiled an egg while playing the overture to The Marriage of Figaro it should be done to perfection. John Cook

Sidmouth, Devon

SIR – As conductor of the Royal Ballet Touring Company in the early 1970s, my father, Terence Lovett, would up the tempo in the final act to ensure a speedy exit. The audience may have been unaware of this change of pace but the dancers were left breathless. Jonathan Lovett

Surbiton, Surrey