The Short

86 NOTATION OF ACCENTS AND DYNAMICS
to the performer, or whether his sfs were meant to cover the whole range of accents from the slightest to the most
powerful. 164
Cherubini certainly seems to have considered that sf indicated an absolute dynamic level and to have feared that it
might, in some contexts, elicit too strong an accent from performers. In the scherzo of his First String Quartet, for
instance, he used the direction mz. sf (mezzo sforzando) in piano passages (Ex. 3.32.) Schubert, too, may have regarded
sf as, to a degree, representing an absolute dynamic level, or at least as belonging within a restricted dynamic range, for
he not only employed > very regularly as an accent sign but also used both sf and sff, implying a graduated scale, with sf
as a middle ranking accent. Spohr, however, used fzto some extent as a relative dynamic marking, as a passage from the
autograph of his String Quartet op. 82 no. 2 indicates (Ex. 3.33.) In the forte the first violin's (and viola's) fz seems
likely to have been relative to the other instruments' f, and in the piano to their presumably less powerful >. A similar
intention to elicit an accent relative to the prevailing piano dynamic seems likely in Ex. 3.34.
Ex. 3.32. Cherubini, String Quartet no. 1/iii
Schumann also used sf quite often but, since he utilized an even more extended range of accent markings with
considerable subtlety, it is probable that his intentions were more narrowly conceived although they were undoubtedly
not consistent throughout his career. Schumann's sf seems, for the most part to be a fairly powerful accent; he was
sparing of its use in piano passages, where fp, >, and < > are more common. Brahms availed himself of sf much less
frequently, which suggests that he regarded it as an especially weighty and significant accent to call on in particular
circumstances. A few important nineteenth-century composers, including Weber, Meyerbeer, and Verdi,
164 But see below for Beethoven's use of rf.