The Short

For keyboard, in the second half of the eighteenth century, C. P. E. Bach instructed that staccato notes ‘are always held
for a little less than half their notated length’, 368 while Türk considered that the finger should be lifted from the key on
notes with staccato marks ‘when close to half the value of the written note is past’. Conscious of the strong association
between staccato and accent Türk continued: ‘I should not have to mention that notes that are to be played gently can
also be staccato; for all that, however, one hears some players who perform all staccato notes loud without exception,
quite in conflict with the correct expression.’ Echoing and expanding on Bach's opinion, he also cautioned that:
In performance of detached notes one must especially take into account the prevailing character of the
composition, the tempo, the prescribed loudness and softness, etc. If the character of a piece is serious, tender, sad,
etc. then the detached notes should not be played as short as in pieces of a lively, playful, etc. character. The notes
that should be shortly detached, that are mixed into a melodious Adagio, should not be made as short as in an
Allegro. In forte one can generally staccato more shortly than in piano. Leaping notes are, as a whole, played with a
shorter staccato than intervals that progress stepwise, etc. 369
Türk was at pains to point out, as mentioned earlier, that there were some circumstances in which a note with a
staccato mark (stroke) should be shortened, but given absolutely no accent; for instance, when the stroke indicated the
end of a phrase at an Abzug(see Ex. 4.7,) or, more confusingly, when the figure ended with a metrically strong beat (Ex.
6.15.) 370
Ex. 6.15. Türk, Klavierschule, VI, 2, §24
DOTS AND STROKES 215
There seems indeed to have been some significant lack of agreement, probably dependent on the tradition to which a
writer belonged as well as the instrument concerned, about the accent element in staccato. The anonymous author of a
British publication, New Instructions for Playing the Harpsichord Pianoforte, or Organ etc. (c.1790), considered that‘Staccato
marks ? or ? intimate the Notes must be touched very lightly with taste and spirit, keeping the
368
Versuch, i, III, §17.
369
Klavierschule, VI, 3, §36. A very similar piece of advice is given in the fifth edition of Löhlein's Clavier-Schule, edited and revised by Witthauer in 1791. He observed: ‘How
short the attack on notes that are to be staccatoed should really be cannot be determined in general, for it depends as much on the length and shortness of the notes as on
the faster or slower tempo of the piece and its character. … It is therefore a great error, which is often committed, if all notes on which a staccato mark stands, are, without
any consideration, made very short and very strong. Thereby many a piece acquires a very false and often really barbarous character’ (p. 18 ).
370
Klavierschule, VI, 2, §22.