The accent element in staccato was discussed by theorists at an early stage, but the staccato mark's dual function was never clearly differentiated. Sometimes the mark seems to have been used merely to shorten a note, sometimes to indicate both shortening and emphasis and sometimes, apparently, to indicate primarily accent.184This agglomeration of functions was acknowledged in Johann Gottfried Walther's early eighteenth-century consideration of the term, in which he derived the word's two alternative forms, staccato and stoccato, from different roots. He observed:
179 VI, §§15 ff.
180 Kurzer aber deutlicher Unterricht im Klavierspiel (Göttingen, 1783).
181 pp. 133 ff .
182 See Ex. 1.8.
183 A Complete, iii. 54.
184 For further discussion of these signs as articulation, rather than accent marks, see Ch. 6.
Staccato or Stoccato is almost synonymous with spiccato, indicating that the bowstrokes must be short without dragging and well separated from each other.185The first derives from staccare, separate [entkleben], detach [ablösen], and this word from taccare, stick [kleben] and dis [taccare]; or better from attaccare, attach [anhÄngen], stick to [ankleben], and instead of the syllable at-, dis-, or s- signify ent-[kleben]. The second [of these terms] however derives from stocco, a stick [Stock], and means pushed [gestossen], not pulled [nicht gezogen].186
Johann Friedrich Agricola's 1757 revised version of Tosi's treatise on singing used the staccato mark unequivocally as a sign for accent without any implication of separation, instructing the pupil that a clear marking of the beat was necessary ‘not only for the sake of clarity but also for the steady maintenance of an even tempo’,187and illustrated this with an example (Ex. 3.47(a).) So, too, did Leopold Mozart (Ex. 3.47(b).)188But such uses of a single isolated stroke to indicate accent may sometimes be in danger of being confused with the diametrically opposite usage, alluded to by Schulz and Türk, where the stroke signified only the shortening necessary at the end of a musical phrase to separate it from the following one, in which case the note would generally be performed very lightly.189
Ex. 3.47. (a) Agricola, Anleitung zur Singkunst, 129, trans. Baird as Introduction to the Art of Singing, 155; (b) L. Mozart, Versuch, VI, §8
185 See below, Ch. 7 for discussion of the various implications of spiccato.
186 Musicalisches Lexicon (Leipzig, 1732), art. ‘Staccato’.
187 Anleitung zur Singkunst (Berlin, 1757), trans, and ed. Julianne C. Baird as Introduction to the Art of Singing (Cambridge, 1995), 155.
188 Versuch, VI, §8.
189 See Exx. 4.7 and 6.15.
Reference to the accent properties of the staccato mark can be found in many eighteenth- and nineteenth-century sources. In 1808 G. W. Fink, discussing metrical accentual relationships, having observed that a note on a weak beat must act as an anacrusis to the following strong beat, qualified this by saying ‘unless the composer has not expressly prevented this by a dot over the note or by means of rests’.190 Thomas Busby observed in his Dictionary that vertical strokes signify that notes ‘are to be played in a short, distinct, and pointed manner’.191He also commented that a dot, too, ‘when stationed over a note, implies that such a note is to be played in a strong and striking manner’.192Where a distinction was made between the dot and the stroke it was predominantly the latter that was seen by the majority of early nineteenth-century German musicians as inherently having the more pronounced accent function. Knecht, echoing G. J. Vogler, instructed that notes with strokes should be delivered with ‘long and sharp’ staccato (lang und scharf abgestossen) and that those with dots should be played ‘short and daintily’ (kurz und niedlich abgestupft).193At least one French string method, the Paris Conservatoire's Méthode de violoncelle, approached Knecht's view, for after describing staccato in general terms as ‘hammered’ (martelé), it continued ‘If the sign [for staccato] is lengthened a little above the note in this manner [Ex. 3.48] one lengthens the bow a little more; but if it only has dots, one makes the bowstroke very short and far enough from the bridge that the sound is round and that the staccato [martellement] is gentle to the ear.’194Fröhlich referred to strokes as indicating ‘the more powerful staccato’ (der krÄftigere StoΒ) and dots as indicating
‘the gentler’ one (der gelindere).195 In the Violinschule of Mendelssohn's and Schumann's colleague Ferdinand David, accented martelé bowstrokes were associated with staccato strokes, while staccato dots were used to indicate the lighter springing staccato bowstroke.196This interpretation was followed by many German authors. Louis Schubert stated in his Violinschule that the stroke should be played with ‘a degree of accent much stronger than the dot’.197Among other writers who echoed David's usage, not necessarily referring to string playing, were Arrey von Dommer, who noted that the wedge-shaped, pointed staccato
Ex. 3.48. Baillot et al., Méthode de violoncelle, 128
190 Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, 11 (1808–9), 229.
191 A Complete Dictionary of Music, 52.
192 Ibid. 60.
193 Katechismus, 48.
194 Pierre Marie FranÇois de Sales Baillot, Jean Henri Levasseur, Charles-Simon Catel, and Charles-Nicolas Baudiot, Méthode de violoncelle du Conservatoire (Paris, 1804), 128.
195 Musikschule, iii. 49.
196 (Leipzig, 1863), esp. 37 ff.
197 Violinschule nach modernen Principien op. 50 (Brunswick, [1883]), ii. 34.
mark indicated ‘the real short and sharp staccato’ (das eigentliche kurze und scharfe staccato) while the dot signified ‘a gentler, rounder, less pointed staccato’ (ein weicheres, runderes, weniger spitzes Abstossen);198Mendel and Reissmann, observing that staccato was indicated by dots or strokes, commented: ‘These latter commonly serve as a sharpening’ (VerschÄrfung);199 Riemann remarked: ‘When staccato dots are distinguished in two forms, namely · and ?, the ? indicates a sharp, the · a light staccato.’200In the pedagogic tradition of German violin playing the influential Joachim and Moser Violinschule of 1905 also lent authority to that interpretation. In England this notation was adopted, for instance, by J. M. Fleming in his Practical Violin School of 1886.201
In France, however, a rather different view of the two forms of staccato mark became normal during the nineteenth century despite the treatment of staccato in the 1804 Méthode de violoncelle. From at least Baillot's L'Art du violon (1834) onwards, the French seem generally to have regarded the stroke (wedge) as not only shorter, but also lighter than the dot. Such an interpretation is suggested by many mid-nineteenth-century references, for example the definition of
‘Piqué’ in the Dictionnaire de musique endorsed by Halévy in 1854, which commented that such passages were marked with strokes (point allongé) and that these notes were to be ‘equally marked by dry and detached strokes of the tongue or bow’.202In L'Art du violon Baillot used the dot to indicate sharply accented martelé, where the bow remains in contact with the string, and strokes (wedges) for light, bouncing bowstrokes.203And Emile Sauret, among other French string players, followed him in associating the dot with martelé.204 The description of the two marks in the early twentieth-century Encyclopédie de la musique et dictionnaire du Conservatoire reflects French use of them (though the association of the dot with martelé is not explicit), indicating the strength with which a disparity between French and German practice persisted; there, the stroke (point allongé) was described as betokening that the note ‘ought to be separated, struck very lightly, almost dryly’ and as ‘depriving the note of three-quarters of its value’; whereas the dot (point rond) meant that
‘these notes ought to be lightly quitted, however, in a less short, less dry manner than with the stroke’.205
Outside France Baillot's system rather than David's was also adopted by a number of influential pedagogues. The Viennese violinist Jacob Dont, for instance, used dots to designate a martelé bowstroke (gehÄmmert) and strokes
198 Musikalisches Lexicon, art. ‘Absotssen’.
199 Musikalisches Conversations-Lexicon, i. 608.
200 New Pianoforte School/Neue Klavierschule, 17.
201 The Practical Violin School for Home Students (London, 1886), 249, 251.
202 Escudier (frères), Dictionnaire de musique théorique et historique (Paris, 1854), ii. 127.
203 Esp. pp. 92 ff .
204 Gradus ad Pamassum du violiniste op. 36 (Leipzig, [c. 1890]), 5.
205 Albert Lavignac and Lionel de la Laurencie, Encyclopédie de la musique et dictionnaire du Conservatoire (Paris, 1920–31), pt. 2 ‘Technique-esthetique-pédagogie’, 335.
(wedges) to signify that notes should be played with a springing bow (mit springendem Bogen) in his 1874 edition of exercises from Spohr's Violinschule;206 and the Czech violinist Otakar ševčík made a similar use of these signs in his extremely influential teaching material, thus helping to perpetuate the confusion to the present day.207
Many eighteenth- and nineteenth-century German composers employed the staccato mark in contexts where its principal purpose seems to have been accentual.208 An example from Mozart's Don Giovanni where ? is used in conjunction with fp has been cited above (Ex. 3.15.) In the final movement of his Symphony no. 41 the bold staccato strokes over the tied semibreves in the viola and bass (Ex. 3.49) may merely have been intended to ensure that the players did not assume that ties were meant to continue throughout the whole passage, but they may also suggest an accent at the beginning of each new note. (A slight
Ex. 3.49. Mozart, Symphony no. 41 K. 551/iv
206 Zwölf Uebungen aus der Violinschule von L. Spohr mit Anmerkungen, ErgÄnzungen des Fingersatzes der Bogen-Stricharten und der Tonschattierungszeichen (Vienna, 1874).
207 Schule der Violine-Technik op. 1 (Leipzig, 1881), Schule der Bogentechnik op. 2 (Leipzig, 1895), etc.
208 The question where and when a distinction between dots and strokes was intended in 18th- and early 19th-c. music is addressed in Ch. 6.
separation between notes would also be appropriate, but the staccato mark, in this context, can hardly indicate anything like the conventional reduction of the note length by a half or even a quarter of its value.) In the music of Mozart's pupil Süssmayr, too, staccato marks seem sometimes to be used essentially as accents (Ex. 3.50.) And Beethoven's Piano Sonata op. 53 contains a passage in which staccato marks could scarcely have been intended to signify anything other than accents (Ex. 3.51.)209Another instructive example of Beethoven's use of staccato marks as accents occurs in the Trio section of the Scherzo of his Septet (Ex. 3.52;) acknowledging their accent function together with a degree of shortening the editor of the Peters edition of the score (c.1870) gave them as &..
Ex. 3.50. Süssmayr, Der Spiegel von Arcadien, no. 50, MS score in Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, mus. ms. 21 533; pub. in fac.
in the series German Opera 1770–1800 (New York and London, Garland, 1986)
Ex. 3.51. Beethoven, Piano Sonata op. 53/iii
Ex. 3.52. Beethoven, Septet op. 20/iv
209 Rosenblum, Performance Practices, 183 cites this passage as an example of staccato marks used as accents, but she seems to put rather too much weight on the theoretical distinctions between dot and stroke and, apparently confusing the form with the function, remarks: ‘where composers seem to have intended an accent or a metrically accented note, the printed sign should be a stroke or a wedge’.
Where nineteenth-century German composers used both types of staccato mark, the stroke seems generally to have been intended as much to indicate accent as to specify shortening. G. F. Kogel, the nineteenth-century editor of Marschner's Hans Heiling, explained that Marschner used the staccato stroke to designate ‘notes that ought, with short, powerful bowstrokes, to be most especially strongly (sfz) made to stand out’.210A similar type of execution appears to be implied by Schumann's use of strokes (printed as wedges), for instance in the first movement of his ‘Rhenish’
Symphony, where a particular passage is always marked in this way (Ex. 3.53,) while only dots are used for staccato in the rest of the symphony. The autograph of ‘Reiterstück’ from Schumann's Album für die Jugend provides a good example of the composer's use of ? together with ⌃ and · as a graduated series of accent/articulation marks in keyboard writing (Ex. 3.54.)
Ex. 3.53. Schumann, Third Symphony op. 97/i
Brahms also made a distinction between dots and strokes, and although Kogel (writing in the 1880s) considered that the stroke as used by Marschner was ‘an obsolete form of notation’, Brahms, who was quite conservative in his attitude towards notation, seems clearly to have associated strokes with this kind of sharp, accented staccato (Ex.
3.55,)211DvoŘák, too, made use of them in a similar way (Ex. 3.56.) Amongst other composers who certainly used the stroke and the dot in this manner was Wagner, at least in some of his late works.212His orthography in the autographs is often unclear, nor does it always correspond with the earliest printed editions, but where Wagner is known to have overseen the publication of a work (i.e. in the case of his later operas), it may be conjectured that some of the differences result from alterations at proof stage. Among more recent composers, Schönberg seems to have inherited this tradition, for he explained in the preface to his Serenade op. 24: ‘In the marking of the short notes a distinction is here made between hard, heavy, staccatoed and light, elastic, thrown (spiccato) ones. The former are marked with ? ?, the latter by’213Elgar, too, evidently considered the stroke to have accentual qualities, to judge by passages such as Ex.
3.57.
210 Full score (Leipzig, Peters, c. 1880), preface.
211 See below, Ch. 6, p. 218 and Ex. 6.20.
212 But see Ch. 6.
213 (Copenhagen and Leipzig, W. Hansen, 1924).
Ex. 3.54. Schumann, Album für die Jugend, ‘Reiterstück’
Ex. 3.55. Brahms: (a) First Symphony op. 68/i; (b) Clarinet Quintet op. 115/i
Ex. 3.56. DvoŘák, String Quartet op. 80/iv
Ex. 3.57. Elgar, First Symphony op. 55/ii