Fridrich Willhelm Marpurg’s classification of manners of connected tempo rubato

The paper analyzes the earliest theoretical and systematic conception of connected Tempo rubato in Western European musicology, which was devised by the German theoretician and composer Fridrich Willhelm Marpurg and expounded by him in his musical treatise “Anleitung zur Musik überhaupt und zur Singkunst besonders” (Berlin, 1763). Translations with scholarly commentaries are given connected with the general problem of Tempo rubato, while various historical forms of rubato are also described. We will emphasize the main thing: the classification of types of rubato belonging to one of the most authoritative musical theorists of the 18th century shows that the concept rubato then was connected not with agogical freedom of the invariable musical text created by the composer as it is understood today, but with variation and spontaneous change of this text performed by means of various improvisational receptions. In this lies the radical difference between the concept tempo rubato of the 18th century and today's concept.