The use of these signs by composers is rare before the middle of the nineteenth century, although they are mentioned in instruction books at an earlier date. Herz's piano method includes the explanation ‘If the execution of a single note
240 Its concomitant implications for vibrato in string playing are considered below, Ch. 14, where further examples are given. See also Clive Brown, ‘Bowing Styles, Vibrato and Portamento in Nineteenth-Century Violin Playing’, Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 113 (1988), 118–21.
Ex. 3.80. (a) Bruch, Violin Concerto in G minor op. 26/ii; (b) Elgar, Violin Sonata op. 87/i (c) Elgar, String Quartet op.
83/ii
requires to be heavily accented the sign ∸ is employed’.241This sign is also listed by James Alexander Hamilton among other accent markings, but simply with the collective explanation that they all denote ‘stress or marked accent on any single note or chord’.242Although neither author stated that the combination of dot with the line might specify not only stress, but also a degree of separation between the note so marked and the following note, this seems to be implied by its form; the dot indicates staccato yet its combination with the line suggests greater length than would be indicated by the dot alone. However, the line would also have had deep-rooted implications of stress because of its association with the sign for a strong syllable in poetry.
241 A New and Complete Pianoforte School, 16.
242 A Dictionary of Two Thousand Italian, Trench, German, English and other Musical Terms, 4th edn. (London, 1837), 87.
A. B. Marx, including this sign among those which indicate ‘a greater degree of intensity’, instructed that in this case
‘the performer is, at the same time, to linger over each sound’ (see Ex. 3.91;)243and Czerny equated it with dots under a slur, especially where the notes so marked were separated by rests, observing: ‘In these cases the keys must be struck with more than the usual emphasis, and the notes must be held for almost more than their usual value’.244Such an interpretation would nicely fit Schumann's use of it in ‘Winterzeit 2’, as notated in the autograph of his Album für die Jugend (Ex. 3.81(a)) or in the third movement of his ‘Rhenish’ Symphony, where it occurs in close juxtaposition with portato semiquavers (Ex. 3.81(b).) Brahms, however, among other composers, seems to have continued to employ dots and a slur, even over notes separated by rests, to indicate the type of portato illustrated in the example from Schumann's symphony. In his Horn Trio Brahms employed a more curious (?shorthand) version of the same thing, putting a slur and dot over single notes (Ex. 3.82.)
Ex. 3.81. Schumann: (a) Album für die Jugend, ‘Winterzeit 2’; (b) Third Symphony op. 97/iii
The Mendel—Reissmann Lexikon associated the sign with accent and a degree of sostenuto.245 At a much later date Riemann described ∸ as requiring ‘a broad kind of playing, but yet with, separation of the single tones (portato, non legato)’,246 while the Encyclopédie of the Paris Conservatoire described both ∸ and &. as instructions to ‘attack the note heavily and weightily, and quit it immediately in a detached manner’.247
243 Universal School, 115.
244 Pianoforte School, i. 188 and iii. 24.
245 Musikalisches Conversations-Lexikon, xi. 212.
246 New Pianoforte-School, 17.
247 Lavignac et al., Encyclopédie de la musique, pt. 2, 336.
Ex. 3.82. Brahms, Horn Trio op. 40/i
The horizontal line without a dot was used most often, in the first instance, in combination with a slur, to obviate the problem of string players interpreting dots under a slur as slurred staccato rather than portato.248This sign (without a slur) also occurs in Hamilton's general list of accents, with no further explanation, though its graphic design clearly implies a degree of length in the performance of notes so marked; but it was scarcely used by composers at that time.
Explanations of the meaning of the sign in later instruction books differ considerably. Louis Schubert's Violinschule is even inconsistent between its German, French, and English versions; a literal translation of the German is ‘broadly staccatoed or legato’ (breit gestoΒen oder gezogen), and the French simply reads ‘broad détaché’249(détaché large), while the English has: ‘played staccato with a slight emphasis on each note’.250 Riemann and the Encyclopédie of the Paris Conservatoire also gave somewhat different descriptions: the former considered it to indicate that the note ‘is to be held down for its full value (tenuto)’,251and the latter that the note so marked ‘ought to be pressed with more firmness than the others’.252
Consideration of individual examples of the use of the sign reveals some justification for all these interpretations and suggests a number of other possibilities. Liszt's employment of the horizontal line in his Faust-Symphonie appears to be as a tenuto instruction rather than as an accent (cautioning against matching the detached execution in the strings), though it may also have been intended to counteract the metrical accentuation and obtain equal weight on all four beats (Ex. 3.83(a).) Where he used it in legato passages, however, its function as an accent, implying weight without sharpness of attack, can scarcely be in doubt (Ex. 3.83(b) and (c)). Despite Liszt's example, Wagner employed this sign infrequently; indeed, many of its occurrences in his scores seem to result from additions made during publication. On at least one occasion
248 See below, Ch. 6.
249 The word détaché means literally separated, but in violin playing signifies extremely connected notes played in separate bows.
250 Violinschule nach modernen Principien, i. 12.
251 New Pianoforte-School, 17.
252 Lavignac et al., Encyclopédie de la musique, pt. 2, 335.
Ex. 3.83. Liszt, Eine Faust-Symphonie, i, ‘Faust’
he intended the sign to indicate a discrete vibrato (which also has some implication of accent253): Heinrich Porges noted in his account of the rehearsals for the première of the Ring in 1876 that at one point in Act III, Scene iii of Siegfried
‘The strokes [lines] above the E and B of “zitternd” indicate that here Wagner wanted that gentle vibrato—not to be confused with the bad habit of tremolando—whose importance in expressive singing he often spoke of’254(Ex. 3.84.) Elsewhere, apart from his use of the horizontal line (instead of the conventional dot) under a slur for portato, the sign may sometimes occur in Wagner's scores with a meaning similar to that envisaged by Liszt. According to transcriptions of his instructions at rehearsals of Parsifal he asked at one point that the quavers should be ‘very sustained and held [sehr getragen und
253 See Ch. 14, esp. pp. 518 ff .
254 Die Bühnenproben zu der Bayreuther Festspielen des Jahres 1876 (Chemnitz and Leipzig 1881–96), trans. Robert L. Jacobs as Wagner Rehearsing the ‘Ring’ (Cambridge, 1983), 109.
Ex. 3.84. Wagner, Siegfried, Act III, Scene iii
Ex. 3.85. Wagner, Parsifal: (a) rehearsal letter 45; (b) rehearsal letter 48
gehalten], not merely slurred, a true portamento’ (Ex. 3.85(a);) and, at a similar passage, ‘very dragged [sehr gezogen], the quaver very clear, very distinct, the short note is the main thing’ (Ex. 3.85(b).)255Here there are horizontal lines in the 1883 printed edition that are missing from the holograph score. Although they appear under slurs, it seems unlikely that Wagner intended any separation, as would have been the case with the usual portato.
In the music of many later nineteenth-century composers the horizontal line apparently had the function of indicating the slightest degree of separation and/or the slightest degree of expressive weight. There are many instances where any perceptible element of separation seems inappropriate (Ex. 3.86(a).) Elgar evidently considered it to some extent as indicating a very light accent, as comparison of the opening of variation XI of the Enigma Variations (Ex. 3.86(b)) with the passage at bar 6 suggests (Ex. 3.86(c).) Its accent function seems often likely, however, to have been relative rather than absolute and to have been rather to neutralize the metrical hierarchy than to give the note particular prominence.
Tchaikovsky seems sometimes to imply equality of weight together with almost imperceptible articulation (emphasized by his violin bowing in Ex. 3.87(a);) yet on other occasions the intention appears to be to obtain an absolutely full-length note, for in the third bar of Ex. 3.87(b) the violins' phrasing should surely match the flute's slur, and the separated bowing was
255 Richard Wagner: SÄmtliche Werke, xxx: Dokumente zur Entstehung und ersten Aufführung des Bühnenweihfestspiels Parsifal, ed. Martin Geck and Egon Voss (Mainz, 1970), 174.
probably intended to allow greater power and volume. DvoŘák often used this sign to indicate a lightly accented, barely detached note, especially in piano passages (Ex. 3.88(a),) but like Tchaikovsky and Elgar he probably used it at times to ensure that the players would give the note its full value (Ex. 3.88 (b).) Sometimes, in the Cello Concerto for instance, there is a suggestion that he may have envisaged an element of agogic accentuation in its execution (Ex. 3.89.) Ex. 3.86. Elgar, Enigma Variations op. 36: (a) theme; (b) variation XI; (c) variation XI
Ex. 3.86.cont. (c)
Ex. 3.87. Tchaikovsky, Symphonie pathétique op. 74/i
Although Brahms took a stance against adopting horizontal lines, they do appear in the Scherzo of the String Sextet op.
36, where they appear to indicate a slight weight. The theme sometimes occurs with ╸ on the weak beats, and sometimes with > (Ex. 3.90(a) and (b).) A similar interpretation of the (for Brahms) unusual employment of horizontal lines under slurs in the Second Symphony seems probable (Ex. 3.90(c).) However, Brahms's scepticism about
Ex. 3.88. DvoŘák: (a) Violin Sonata op. 57/iii; (b) String Quartet op. 105/iv
the excessive employment of accent signs is indicated by his remark in a letter of 27 January 1896 to Fritz Simrock, after he had read the proofs of DvoŘák's Te Deum: ‘Do those silly accents have to stay on the stressed syllables?
Nowadays one often sees that. Since the music stresses the syllables, the markings obviously make no sense whatsoever.’
Ex. 3.89. DvoŘák, Cello Concerto op. 104/ii
Ex. 3.90. Brahms: (a) String Sextet op. 36/ii; (b) String Sextet op. 36/ii; (c) Second Symphony op. 73/i