The Short

amount of persuasive evidence for particular usages may, nevertheless, be valuably supplemented by a consideration of
composers' notational practices in relation to prevailing attitudes to the way in which musical context affected
performance style. We cannot hope to understand the relationship between eighteenth- and nineteenth-century
notation and performance in the way that accomplished musicians of that period, with a lifetime's experience, would
have understood it; but the more we are aware of the things that conditioned that experience and the more prepared
we are to suspend our own preconceptions about what is ‘musical’, the more apt we are to develop a reliable intuition
for the expectations that lay behind the notation. The inclusion of particular forms of articulation marks in music of
this period is, therefore, likely to be less reliable as a guide to the appropriate style of delivery for a specific passage than
an understanding of the technical and stylistic characteristics of vocal and instrumental performance with which
composer and performer would have been familiar, and an awareness of the factors that conditioned their responses to
different types and genres of music.
Musical Context as a Clue to Execution
DOTS AND STROKES 219
Many clues towards achieving an appropriate style of execution may be found in the eighteenth-century attitude
towards musical context. Throughout most of the second half of the century there was a strong connection between
the type of music and the style of execution. An adagio required a more sustained style of performance than an
andante, and an andante would not invite as detached a performance as an allegro; a solo part would not be performed
in the same style as an accompaniment; church music, chamber music, and opera would each require different
approaches; the same music notated in 3/2 would not elicit the same performance style as it would if it were written in
3/8, even if it were played at the same tempo; and so on. 382 Consequently, a note, with or without an articulation mark,
would be played in very different ways in different musical contexts. The nationality and background of the performer
would also have a powerful influence on the manner of performance.
Many late eighteenth-century writers, for instance, emphasized the necessity of a detached manner of playing in faster
movements and a smoother style of performance in adagio, regardless of the speed of the individual notes. The logical
conclusion from this is, as Reichardt observed in connection with orchestral playing, 383 that if composers wanted to go
against the ruling character of a piece they would have to indicate it in some way.
382
The concept of ‘heavy and light’ performance style, which took account of these factors, is examined separately in Ch. 16.
383
Ueber die Pflichten, 25–6. See Ch. 10 below for details of Reichardt's view of the ways in which tempo affected the bowstroke.