The Short

ecause in 1800 he used strokes under slurs to indicate staccato, that passages marked with dots under slurs in his
earlier works should never be performed staccato, or indeed, since so many of his earlier autographs are missing, that
the printed editions faithfully reflect the original notation. Haydn, an active violinist throughout his career, would have
been conversant with the use of both notations for a slurred staccato. Nevertheless, in the vast majority of cases the
musical context suggests that Haydn used dots under slurs to indicate some kind of portato; this would undoubtedly
have ranged from very smooth to fairly detached, but lifted or sharply accented bowstrokes rarely seem appropriate.
Mozart, despite his father's distinction between dots and strokes under a slur, seems not to have used the latter at all.
In keyboard music he undoubtedly used dots under a slur to indicate portato, and in most instances in his string music
the context strongly suggests that this is also what he required there; but the possibility remains that he sometimes used
this notation in string writing where he wanted a more sharply articulated bowstroke. It is evident from one of his
letters that he knew and admired the slurred staccato; he described the playing of FrÄnzl to his father in 1777, saying:
‘He has too a most beautiful clear, round tone. He never misses a note, you can hear everything. It is all clear cut. He
has a beautiful staccato, played with a single bowing up or down.’ 448 It is quite likely that such a staccato would have
been notated with dots under a slur and it is certainly possible that Mozart might have employed the same notation for
this effect. There are places where it appears probable on musical and technical grounds that this was the execution he
required. One instance, about which there seems little room for doubt, occurs in the first movement of his Violin
Concerto in D K. 211 (Ex. 6.51.) On the other hand, there are places where modern performers commonly play a
sharply detached slurred staccato but where Mozart probably imagined a more connected bowstroke, for instance, in
the first movement of the String Quartet in D K. 575. At bar 66 he introduced the figure shown in Ex. 6.52(a). When
he repeated it four bars later and on all its five subsequent appearances he wrote the bowing as in Ex. 6.52(b). Printed
editions generally give the first bowing on all appearances of the figure, but it is arguable that the other bowing reveals
Mozart's intentions more clearly.
Ex. 6.51.Mozart, Violin Concerto K. 211/i, Allegro moderato
448 Emily Anderson, trans. and ed., The Letters of Mozart and his Family, 2nd edn. (London, 1966), 384.
DOTS AND STROKES 251