The Short

100 NOTATION OF ACCENTS AND DYNAMICS
Reference to the accent properties of the staccato mark can be found in many eighteenth- and nineteenth-century
sources. In 1808 G. W. Fink, discussing metrical accentual relationships, having observed that a note on a weak beat
must act as an anacrusis to the following strong beat, qualified this by saying ‘unless the composer has not expressly
prevented this by a dot over the note or by means of rests’. 190 Thomas Busby observed in his Dictionary that vertical
strokes signify that notes ‘are to be played in a short, distinct, and pointed manner’. 191 He also commented that a dot,
too, ‘when stationed over a note, implies that such a note is to be played in a strong and striking manner’. 192 Where a
distinction was made between the dot and the stroke it was predominantly the latter that was seen by the majority of
early nineteenth-century German musicians as inherently having the more pronounced accent function. Knecht,
echoing G. J. Vogler, instructed that notes with strokes should be delivered with ‘long and sharp’ staccato (lang und
scharf abgestossen) and that those with dots should be played ‘short and daintily’ (kurz und niedlich abgestupft). 193 At least one
French string method, the Paris Conservatoire's Méthode de violoncelle, approached Knecht's view, for after describing
staccato in general terms as ‘hammered’ (martelé), it continued ‘If the sign [for staccato] is lengthened a little above the
note in this manner [Ex. 3.48] one lengthens the bow a little more; but if it only has dots, one makes the bowstroke
very short and far enough from the bridge that the sound is round and that the staccato [martellement] is gentle to the
ear.’ 194 Fröhlich referred to strokes as indicating ‘the more powerful staccato’ (der krÄftigere StoΒ) and dots as indicating
‘the gentler’ one (der gelindere). 195 In the Violinschule of Mendelssohn's and Schumann's colleague Ferdinand David,
accented martelé bowstrokes were associated with staccato strokes, while staccato dots were used to indicate the lighter
springing staccato bowstroke. 196 This interpretation was followed by many German authors. Louis Schubert stated in
his Violinschule that the stroke should be played with ‘a degree of accent much stronger than the dot’. 197 Among other
writers who echoed David's usage, not necessarily referring to string playing, were Arrey von Dommer, who noted that
the wedge-shaped, pointed staccato
Ex. 3.48. Baillot et al., Méthode de violoncelle, 128
190
Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, 11 (1808–9), 229.
191
A Complete Dictionary of Music, 52.
192
Ibid. 60.
193
Katechismus, 48.
194
Pierre Marie FranÇois de Sales Baillot, Jean Henri Levasseur, Charles-Simon Catel, and Charles-Nicolas Baudiot, Méthode de violoncelle du Conservatoire (Paris, 1804), 128.
195
Musikschule, iii. 49.
196
(Leipzig, 1863), esp. 37 ff.
197
Violinschule nach modernen Principien op. 50 (Brunswick, [1883]), ii. 34.