The Short

38 ACCENTUATION IN PRACTICE
Ex. 2.10.(a) Türk, Klavierschule, VI, 2, §15; (b) Schubert, Neue Singe-Schule, 133
Length
Similar principles were applied to long and short notes within a phrase. According to Leopold Mozart, a note
distinguished from its neighbours by greater length would be emphatic. 98 Kirnberger stated simply ‘Longer note values
are always performed with more weight and emphasis than shorter ones’. 99 Philip Corri observed: ‘Emphasis should be
generally placed on the longest and highest note of a sentence, and a note that is dotted among equal notes’ (Ex.
2.11.) 100 Hummel likewise commented: ‘If after a short note occupying the accented time of the measure, a longer note
should succeed on the unaccented time, the latter usually requires an emphasis’, 101 while Czerny insisted that, in
general, long notes be strongly accented. 102 Later in the century Lussy continued to promulgate this notion,
commenting that a long note that follows several shorter ones ‘acquires great force’. 103
Ex. 2.11.P.A. Corri, L'anima di musica, 72
Syncopation
The rule of accenting individual syncopated notes that occur in an otherwise unsyncopated melody seems closely
related to the principle that long notes should be more emphatic than short ones. The degree of emphasis appropriate
to a particular syncopated note would, of course, depend on its length, prominence or function.
98 Mozart, Versuch, XII, §8.
99 Die Kunst des reinen Satzes, ii, 4, §116; trans. David Beach and Jurgen Thym (New Haven and London, 1982), 384.
100 L'anima di musica, 72.
101 A Complete, iii. 54 n.
102 Pianoforte School, iii. 21.
103 Traité de l'expression musicale: Accents, nuances et mouvements dans la musique vocale et instrumentale (Paris, 1874), 6th edn. (Paris, 1892), trans. M. E. von Glehn as Musical Expression
(London, [c. 1885]), 129–30. (For the implications of the term ‘vibrato’ in such contexts see below, Ch. 14, esp. pp. 518 ff .)