The Short

ARTICULATION AND PHRASING 147
Ex. 4.10. (a) Mozart, Rondo K. 511; (b) Beethoven, Piano Sonata op. 31/2/iii; (c) Chopin, Mazurka op. 6/3
Phrasing slurs [liaisons rhythmiques] should never be placed above notes belonging to two different rhythms, and
should never embrace or cover the last note of one rhythm and the first of another. 275
Türk's proposal of new signs for marking phrase divisions and expressive accents, mentioned above, typifies the
growing concern, which he shared with C. P. E. Bach, J. F. Reichardt, and many other contemporaries, to find a more
explicit means of indicating the articulation that, in practice, the performer had to supply on the basis of experience.
Türk's 1783 sonatas had been primarily aimed at amateurs of limited accomplishments who could not be expected to
possess the skill and judgement of professionals in such matters. The widening market for published music, for both
professional and amateur use, was a significant factor in encouraging this development. Unfortunately, however, the
carelessness of many composers and most publishers before the middle of the nineteenth century frustrated all efforts
to ensure that performers might be able to rely on the accuracy of the markings in the music from which they played.
Another of Türk's contemporaries, Domenico Corri, who was not only a singer and composer (he was a pupil of
Porpora), but also a publisher, was acutely conscious of the advantages of providing greater guidance in such matters
for the predominantly amateur clientele at whom his publications were aimed. His Select Collection of vocal music was
intended ‘to facilitate, and at the same time to render more perfect, the performance of vocal and instrumental
music’, 276 and he felt that ‘one of the most important articles in the execution of music (vocal music in particular) is the
proper division of the PERIODS; asis
275
Traité de l'expression musicale, 69.
276
A Select Collection, i. 1.