However, as widely documented in recordings, the extent of which performers relate to a specific tempo indication depends on performance practice, and in many cases, tempo marks are often treated in a personal way and as an indication for a tempo zone, rather than to be followed to the letter. In the case of Syrinx, the indication given is Tres modéré (very moderated). Although commonly used, it is not actually clear what is being moderated. Is it the tempo? If so, does it means moderating a fast or a slow tempo? Or is it the character or mood that is being moderated? And how slow or fast Tres modéré can be?

Listening to a wide range of recordings reveals that Tres modéré is being read at the faster range of larghetto, with a basic tempo ranging between 58 and 66 per quaver. The focal point in the next version was a tempo that is slower than the one usually taken.

In this version, the short notes, which, in a faster tempo are perceived as passing notes, present an expressive potential, due to their chromatic nature. Furthermore, taking the opportunities presented in the slower tempo in shaping the short note passages sheds light on an alternative formal reading, in which the piece is read in the context of whole tone mode. Briefly, the piece is usually read as written in a ABA form floating between related tonal centres of B-flat minor, and a middle section based around E-flat. The ‘arabesque like’ chromatic passages are considered in this context as a momentary chromatic instability. A formal reading that results form what John Rink calls ‘a performer’s analysis’ (2002), the slower tempo and the resultant emphasis on the short notes affords an alternative reading of the piece as a process of move from a B-flat to B-natural whole-tone scales as a reference.

In the next two versions I explored taking two opposite extremes of a slow and a fast tempo. The fast tempo version actually meant as a joke; paradoxically, as it is so fast, its character seems quite moderated!