Conductors’ tempo choices shed light over Beethoven’s metronome

Almudena Martin-Castro; Iñaki Ucar

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0243616

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionOctober 23, 2020
20 Nov 2020 Decision Letter - Alice Mado Proverbio, Editor PONE-D-20-33396 Conductors’ tempo choices shed light over Beethoven’s metronome PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Ucar, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has great merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the minor points raised during the review process. Having personally read the paper, its methodology and its conclusions in detail, I believe that I fully adhere to the evaluations of Reviewer #1, so I suggest the authors to make the minor suggested changes, in this final round of review. Please submit your revised manuscript by Jan 04 2021 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. 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We note that you have stated that you will provide repository information for your data at acceptance. Should your manuscript be accepted for publication, we will hold it until you provide the relevant accession numbers or DOIs necessary to access your data. If you wish to make changes to your Data Availability statement, please describe these changes in your cover letter and we will update your Data Availability statement to reflect the information you provide. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: Review of paper PONE-D-20-33396 Conductors tempo choices shed light’s over Beethoven’s metronome This paper analyzes the role of Maelzel metronomous ambigue scale in inducing the music composer Ludwig van Beethoven in choosing BPM tempos systematically higher than what he actually intended. In order to do the authors analyzed the complete recordings of Beethoven’s symphonies performed by 36 different conductors from different styles and time periods, ranging from the 1940s to the 2010s and analyzed them automatically using a tempo estimation algorithm. They also recreated Beethoven’s very metronome from photographs. Data analysis showed that all the conductors, including the one more adhering to metronomic indications (such as for example Riccardo Chailly), systematically deviated from Beethoven’s marks and used slower, or much slower tempos. Overall, this is a very interesting paper, nicely written and accurately documented. It uses a rigorous and sound methodology, and the discussion of the results is fully supported by evidences and data analysis. We think that it makes an excellent contribution to both musicology and history of science and measurements. I have only a few suggestion outlined below: 1) Top of page 3 (line 70), Results. Please spend a few more words about the methods for classifying conductors in the 3 classes 2) Legend of Figure 3, please define CI (with a 95% CI) 3) Fig. 4b. Please indicate where this document is stored (Library, museum etc..) 4) Please define LRT, line 267, page 9 a significative random effect (LRT = 5) Fig 2 and Fig. 4. Can you possible increase the contrast, rendering the gray more dark? ****** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review?** For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0243616.r001
Revision 1
23 Nov 2020 Author Response We are very grateful for a quick yet thorough review, as well as for the kind words about our work. In the following, we provide a response to each comment, explaining how it has been addressed in the new version of the paper. For convenience, we provide a revised version with tracked changes along with the untracked version. 1. Top of page 3 (line 70), Results. Please spend a few more words about the methods for classifying conductors in the 3 classes Thanks for bringing this into our attention. The classification of performances is made by convention: HI are those that use period instruments and follow all the usual HI stylistic criteria (as analysed by Young [7] among others), and usually simply because the conductor explicitly stated the intention to follow such criteria; HI-influenced performers follow the same stylistic guidelines, but may be not so strict in terms of instrumentation; finally, Romantic performances are those previous to the 1980s or, more generally, those that do not adhere to HI performing criteria. These details can be found in the performance reviews included with the recordings (identified in Table 1) as well as Young’s PhD thesis [7]. Our intention was to provide a quick note in Results (line 70), and then this description in Methods (line 177), but we forgot to add it. Therefore, we have included this longer explanation to Methods (lines 177-184) in the revised version of the manuscript, because we believe it belongs in this section. However, if bringing such a paragraph forward to Results is considered best for the readership, we would be happy to move it. Note also that we have corrected a broken reference to Table 1 (line 178). 2. Legend of Figure 3, please define CI (with a 95% CI) Added “Confidence Interval” to figure legend as well as line 274. 3. Fig. 4b. Please indicate where this document is stored (Library, museum etc..) Thanks, we forgot to add the reference. The autograph of the 9th Symphony is stored in the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin, and it can be accessed online through a permanent URL. We have added this as reference number 28 in the revised version of the manuscript. We have also added 3 missing URLs in references 25-27. 4. Please define LRT, line 267, page 9 a significative random effect (LRT = Added “Likelihood Ratio Test” to line 275 of the revised version of the manuscript. 5. Fig 2 and Fig. 4. Can you possibly increase the contrast, rendering the gray more dark? We have increased the contrast in both figures, and in Fig 4b we have specified that this is an enhanced version of the image. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: response_reviewers.pdf https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0243616.r002
25 Nov 2020 Decision Letter - Alice Mado Proverbio, Editor Conductors’ tempo choices shed light over Beethoven’s metronome PONE-D-20-33396R1 Dear Dr. Ucar, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Alice Mado Proverbio Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0243616.r003
Formally Accepted
27 Nov 2020 Acceptance Letter - Alice Mado Proverbio, Editor PONE-D-20-33396R1 Conductors' tempo choices shed light over Beethoven's metronome Dear Dr. Ucar: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Alice Mado Proverbio Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0243616.r004

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