The Short

Ex. 3.66. Meyerbeer, Les Huguenots, no. 18
NOTATION OF ACCENTS AND DYNAMICS 113
Hummel, apparently equating > and ⌃ (at least in terms of strength), observed that ‘The mark of emphasis (⌃ or >) is
used both in piano and forte passages; it, in a slight degree, distinguishes from the rest, the note over which it stands.’ 218
Both these musicians, however, saw it as appropriate to any dynamic. Later theorists increasingly considered it to be
more appropriate in piano passages than in forte ones. Karl Gollmick observed: ‘The sign > means only an accent on
[the note] and belongs more to a gentler style of performance.’ 219 Wagner on one occasion referred to > in Weber's Der
Freischütz as indicating the ‘merest sigh’. 220 Wagner's use of this accent sign in his own operas suggests that this may
have been how he envisaged its execution, though, as so often in his pronouncements about the performance of earlier
composers' music, he may not have been entirely correct about Weber's intention.
Schubert, who often employed sf, and sometimes sff, and who used > very frequently, undoubtedly intended the latter
marking primarily to designate where the expressive stress in the melody should fall. Sometimes he reinforced
218
A Complete, i. 67.
219
Kritische Terminologie, 4.
220
‘Ueber das Dirigiren’, inGesammelte Schriften, viii. 297.