The Short

NOTATION OF ACCENTS AND DYNAMICS 129
A. B. Marx, including this sign among those which indicate ‘a greater degree of intensity’, instructed that in this case
‘the performer is, at the same time, to linger over each sound’ (see Ex. 3.91;) 243 and Czerny equated it with dots under a
slur, especially where the notes so marked were separated by rests, observing: ‘In these cases the keys must be struck
with more than the usual emphasis, and the notes must be held for almost more than their usual value’. 244 Such an
interpretation would nicely fit Schumann's use of it in ‘Winterzeit 2’, as notated in the autograph of his Album für die
Jugend (Ex. 3.81(a)) or in the third movement of his ‘Rhenish’ Symphony, where it occurs in close juxtaposition with
portato semiquavers (Ex. 3.81(b).) Brahms, however, among other composers, seems to have continued to employ
dots and a slur, even over notes separated by rests, to indicate the type of portato illustrated in the example from
Schumann's symphony. In his Horn Trio Brahms employed a more curious (?shorthand) version of the same thing,
putting a slur and dot over single notes (Ex. 3.82.)
Ex. 3.81. Schumann: (a) Album für die Jugend, ‘Winterzeit 2’; (b) Third Symphony op. 97/iii
The Mendel—Reissmann Lexikon associated the sign with accent and a degree of sostenuto. 245 At a much later date
Riemann described ∸ as requiring ‘a broad kind of playing, but yet with, separation of the single tones (portato, non legato)’, 246
while the Encyclopédie of the Paris Conservatoire described both ∸ and &. as instructions to ‘attack the note heavily and
weightily, and quit it immediately in a detached manner’. 247
243
Universal School, 115.
244
Pianoforte School, i. 188 and iii. 24.
245
Musikalisches Conversations-Lexikon, xi. 212.
246
New Pianoforte-School, 17.
247
Lavignac et al., Encyclopédie de la musique, pt. 2, 336.