The Short

Ex. 6.8. Mozart, String Quartet K. 575/iv
DOTS AND STROKES 211
if he had given them staccato marks throughout is uncertain. In a couple of places Mozart did supplement the notes
with staccato marks, but his doing so seems principally to have been prompted by a desire to clarify the extent of a
carelessly drawn slur rather than to indicate that the notes so marked required a different type of execution from others
(Ex. 6.8(b).) It may certainly be legitimate to ask whether string players of Mozart's day, employing the types of
bowstroke that were familiar to them, would have been prompted to execute notes of this speed differently if they had
staccato marks than if they had not.