The Short

630 PARALIPOMENA
[Takttheile] (beat divisions [Glieder]) in a piece, the heavier the performance style must be…
A vocal piece with many dissonances demands a heavier performance style than one that consists of fewer
dissonances and more consonant harmonies. Fugues, well worked out [contrapuntal] pieces of church music,
require a heavy performance style throughout; in general the performance style in church is, regardless of the metre,
heavier than in the chamber or the theatre—The contrapuntal [gebunden] (strict) style of writing demands a heavier
performance style than the free [frey] (light, galant). * The manner or style of the composer is also to be considered
in relation to a heavy or light performance style. Thus, for example, pieces by Mozart require, on the whole, a
heavier performance style than those of Haydn. The vocal pieces of the latter must, on the other hand, be more
heavily performed than those of Paisiello, Martin, etc. One also often finds that compositions of one and the same
master must be differently performed with respect to weight or lightness. Thus, for example, Mozart's Don Giovanni
requires (on the whole) a heavier performance style than The Marriage of Figaro. Salieri's Axur must be more heavily
performed than La cifra.
* [Schubert's footnote] gebundenen = strict harmony etc.; frey= more licence, boldmodulations, surprising entries.
One must also observe from the characteristics of the melody and from the meaning of the text which individual
passages should be more heavily or lightly performed than others. A powerful unison, for example, always demands
a heavier performance style in every type of musical composition as long as the composer has not deliberately
specified the contrary. Dotted notes demand, for the most part, a heavier performance style, for example [Ex.
16.46] 1193 … Passagework and ornaments are, without exception, performed lightly. 1194
Ex. 16.46. J. F. Schubert, Neue Singe-Schule, 131
Notions such as these were usually discussed under the general heading Vortrag (performance style) in late eighteenthand
early nineteenth-century treatises, but considerations of Vortragm nineteenth-century writing changed significantly
during the course of the century. Writers displayed less and less interest in drawing conclusions about performance
style from the types of notes employed, the genre, the type of piece, or the musical context. It became almost an article
of faith that, in a new era of individualism, each piece had its own unique demands that could only be indicated by
specific instructions from the composer. Thus, in the Musikalisches Conversations-Lexikon of H. Mendel and A.
Reissmann (1882) the entry for Vortrag was strikingly different from that in Sulzer's Allgemeine Theorie of just over a
hundred years earlier.
1193 See above, ‘Over-Dotting’, for information on over-dotting, which Schubert includes at this point.
1194 Neue Singe-Schule, 130–1.