Melinda's brushwith greatness

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Inspired by the music for the next Symphonic Band rotation:
Julie Giroux’s “Overture in Five Flat” begins with the rather ambiguous tempo marking of quarter note = “you have five minutes”. Like any good math nerd, I have to wonder - just how fast do you have to play this piece to finish in exactly five minutes?
The simple average gives us 194 measures*4 beats per measure/5 minutes = 155.2 bpm. Fast, but not that fast. (Probably not “tempo di tear ass” fast)
BUT at measure 140, we get quarter note = “a little faster here,” which we observe for the rest of the piece. I decided to call this 20% faster than the beginning. If we do a weighted average with x bpm for the first 139 measures and 1.2x bpm for the last 55 measures, we get x = 146.9 bpm for the beginning and 1.2x = 176.2 bpm for the end. Now we’re cooking with gas.
However, playing “Overture in Five Flat” in exactly five minutes is rather uninspired. Professor Fisher told us that when they recorded this piece a few years ago, they finished in 4:15.
Repeat the weighted average with 4.25 minutes and we get approximately 173 bpm for the beginning and 207 at the end.
...please send help. (and a metronome!)

So the funniest part of the above post came in a text with the image to the left - "I have peaked." 

https://www.facebook.com/melinda.coleman.14/posts/2032628090177634

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