The Short

398 TEMPO MODIFICATION
Türk had stressed the necessity of employing this kind of expressive lingering as an adjunct of fine performance,
cautioning: ‘It is understood that the following note loses as much of its value as the accented note receives from it.’ 785
His explanation of the circumstances in which its introduction might be appropriate is similar to his discussion of
expressive accent. The correspondence between Türk's rules for the employment of expressive lingering and those
usually given for the application of accent indicate their relationship, which has already been discussed in Chapter 2.
Ex. 11.7. Rode, Third Caprice, in Joachim and Moser, Violinschule, iii. 7
A generation later, Spohr in his Violinschule described this type of expressive lingering in his explanation of how Rode's
Seventh Concerto should be performed (see Ex. 12.10.) A similar procedure is evidently intended to be applied,
probably together with vibrato, in many of Rode's own caprices in instances where he marks notes with the sign ;
the passage from Rode's Third Caprice shown in Ex. 11.7, was analysed and described thus in the Joachim and Moser
Violinschule:
Here the vibrato necessitates not only a slight lingering on the notes marked , but the bow should also support
the vibration by a soft pressure on the string. The time lost on the vibrated note must be regained from the notes
that follow, so that the proceeding takes place without in any way interrupting the rhythmic flow of the passage. 786
Joachim's own recorded performances show that, along with more obtrusive modifications of tempo, he continued to
employ this type of tempo rubato. Indeed, even in the later nineteenth century many writers who discussed expressive
lingering, both on notes and rests, emphasized the necessity of regaining the lost time. But in practice there were
undoubtedly many instances where a real disturbance of the beat would have occurred, and this seems increasingly to
have been envisaged during the course of the nineteenth century.
Tempo rubato could, however, involve a more radical redistribution of the note values during an extended passage. In
its most straightforward form this might amount to little more than simple syncopation, and it is shown thus by,
among others, Marpurg, Agricola, Hiller, Lasser, Koch, and Türk. Koch and Türk elaborated the idea of tempo rubato
as being more or less confined to a
785 Klavierschule, VI, §18.
786 Pt. iii. 7.