The Short

126 NOTATION OF ACCENTS AND DYNAMICS
Ex. 3.77. DvoŘák, String Quartet op. 106/i
the late nineteenth century when it observed that a note marked with ⌃ ‘should be accented, marked strongly with
firmness’, though (supporting Hugh Macdonald's view of its principal significance for Berlioz) the definition of >
suggests that the difference between the two signs was seen less as one of power than of type, for it states that >
‘demands a stronger attack [than the preceding note] followed immediately by a decrease of sonority’. 238 Curiously,
perhaps, the logical interpretation of ⌃ (as opposed to >) as an accent without marked diminuendo, something which
in any case is scarcely possible on the piano, seems seldom to be an explicit factor in its use.
The Short Messa. di voce (< >)
The short crescendo-diminuendo sign, used over a single note, which derives from the messa di voce, is common in
some nineteenth-century composers' music. From his earliest period Beethoven liked to use this expressive nuance
over short phrases or long notes, and occasionally in the late works it appears in association with shorter notes where
there would scarcely be time to execute a real crescendo-diminuendo (Ex. 3.78.) Some of his successors, perhaps
taking the hint from this usage, or from violinists such as Campagnoli or Pierre Rode, or deriving it directly from the
typical eighteenth-century treatment of the Abzug, 239 began to employ this sign over shorter notes, purely as a type of
accent. That it was seen entirely as a special kind of accent by composers such as Schumann (who used it extensively) is
indicated by his use of it on the
238 Lavignac et al., Encyclopédie de la musique, pt. 2, 335.
239 See Ch. 13.