The Short

Oboists, clarinettists, bassoonists can read about this in the article in the Flute Method [a later section of the
Musikschule] and attempt to transfer it [portamento] to their instruments. Hornists, trombonists must, by dint of
diligent study, try to make it as much like the singing voice as possible. But this is a matter for people who want to
appear as up-todate artists. 1119
But in singing Fröhlich cautioned that portamento was most appropriate in soprano voices, less good in tenor voices,
and entirely to be avoided in bass voices. Like Lasser and Schubert he considered that rising or falling semitones were
particularly apt to be embellished by a portamento and illustrated this with Ex. 15.14, in which the slanting lines were
explained as signifying ‘the melting together of the notes’. 1120 Passages of this kind seem to have remained favourite
places for portamento in the nineteenth century in singing, string playing, and wind playing.
Ex. 15.14.Schubert, Neue Singe-Schule, 57 (and Fröhlich, Musikschule, 59)
Another use for portamento suggested by Schubert was at fermatas, where he advised that ‘the portamento can serve
instead of another decoration, for example [Ex. 15.15]’. 1121 His suggestion of using a line to indicate portamento
between legato notes was not, however, taken up by composers in the nineteenth century.
Ex. 15.15.Schubert, Neue Singe-Schule, 59
Portamento in Wind Playing
PORTAMENTO 573
Fröhlich was not alone in describing how wind instruments could attempt to imitate the vocal portamento. While it
was scarcely possible for them effectively to make a portamento over larger intervals, a number of writers gave
instructions for producing one, particularly on semitone intervals. Among those who discussed portamento on the
flute were Adolph Bernard Fürstenau and the leading English flautist of the mid-nineteenth century, John Clinton.The
latter observed:
1119
Musikschule,
1120
Ibid. 59.
58.
1121
Neue Singe-Schule, 59.