The Short

40 ACCENTUATION IN PRACTICE
separated; neither must the division be marked by an accent but must be merely attacked and quietly sustained; not
otherwise than if it stood at the beginning of a crotchet.’ 108 He illustrated the point with the example shown in Ex. 2.14.
But in his 1787 revision of the book he added an additional footnote to one passage of syncopation (Ex. 2.15:) ‘This is
the only case in which it is customary to mark the division of the notes by a perceptible after-pressure of the bow. That
is to say: when several such notes follow each other in a quick tempo.’ 109
Ex. 2.14.L. Mozart, Versuch, XII, §16
Ex. 2.15.L. Mozart, Versuch, IV, §27
J. A. P. Schulz also appears to recommend this kind of treatment for isolated syncopations, commenting on one of his
examples (see above, Ex. 1.16:) ‘The syncopated notes in the seventh bar are certainly not real main notes; but one
only wanted to show here that one has to perform such notes like main notes, namely firmly and emphatically, and the
second half of them will be strengthened with a jerk in order to make the strong beat of the bar felt.’ 110
Some early nineteenth-century authors also seem to suggest this as a legitimate way of performing syncopation.
Romberg illustrated something of this kind; giving advice for performing the passage in Ex. 2.16(a) he remarked that it
might be played as if notated as in Ex. 2.16(b) (the staccato marks under the tie imply accent, as was common in
German usage (see below, pp. 98 ff.)), and he instructed that ‘in playing the third and fifth quavers a slight jerk be given
to the bow’. 111 Baillot, too, described a similar treatment of syncopation (Ex. 2.17) as the first of three principal styles of
performing such figures, commenting
Ex. 2.16.Romberg, A Complete, 42
108
Versuch, XII, §16.
109
Ibid. IV, §27 (1787 edn. footnote).
110
In Sulzer, Allgemeine Theorie, 2nd edn. iv, 703.
111 A Complete, 42.