The Short

128 NOTATION OF ACCENTS AND DYNAMICS
Ex. 3.80. (a) Bruch, Violin Concerto in G minor op. 26/ii; (b) Elgar, Violin Sonata op. 87/i (c) Elgar, String Quartet op.
83/ii
requires to be heavily accented the sign ∸ is employed’. 241 This sign is also listed by James Alexander Hamilton among
other accent markings, but simply with the collective explanation that they all denote ‘stress or marked accent on any
single note or chord’. 242 Although neither author stated that the combination of dot with the line might specify not only
stress, but also a degree of separation between the note so marked and the following note, this seems to be implied by
its form; the dot indicates staccato yet its combination with the line suggests greater length than would be indicated by
the dot alone. However, the line would also have had deep-rooted implications of stress because of its association with
the sign for a strong syllable in poetry.
241 A New and Complete Pianoforte School, 16.
242 A Dictionary of Two Thousand Italian, Trench, German, English and other Musical Terms, 4th edn. (London, 1837), 87.