The Short

APPOGGIATURAS AND GRACE-NOTES 459
‘The distinction between the two consists merely in the fact that in the case of the acciaccatura the little note is
performed more simultaneously [sic: mehr gleichzeitig] with the main note than in the case of the short Vorschlag.’ 841
In the ensuing discussion of single-note ornaments that are a second above or below the following note, the term
‘appoggiatura’ will be used for one that should take a significant part of the value of the note it precedes; the term
‘anticipatory note’ will be used for one taking a significant part of the value of the note that precedes it, and the term
‘grace-note’ will be used to describe a very short ornament that barely removes anything from the value of the notes
between which it stands, and which is so fleetingly heard that the ear may not register whether it comes with or slightly
before the beat; 842 the term's employment here carries no necessary implication of pre-beat performance as it does
when used by some twentieth-century writers. 843 These basic categories cannot be regarded as entirely exclusive, for
borderlines are often blurred in performance, especially over the question of when an ornamental note is so short that
it may be perceived as a grace-note rather than an appoggiatura or anticipatory note.
Many eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century theorists attempted to clarify distinctions between different
types of single-note ornaments, to suggest ways of linking their appearance with their function, and to adduce rules for
determining what they were intended to convey in any specific set of circumstances; but the haste and negligence of
composers and copyists, and the lack of any universally accepted or recognized notational principles for these
ornaments, seem to have made the interpretation of them quite as troublesome to many less experienced musicians at
that time as it has to their successors. (Accomplished performers would, as implied by what was discussed earlier about
the executant's attitude to notation, generally have been content to follow their instincts.) Eighteenth-century theorists,
primarily with the musical novice in mind, periodically urged composers to minimize ambiguity by writing
appoggiaturas with their intended value or even as full-size notes. 844 During the late eighteenth century these
recommendations, and the acceptance of them by composers, gradually become more frequent. 845 Changing attitudes,
and the concerns that lay behind them, are illustrated by a passage
841
Musikalisches Lexikon, 56.
842
This use of ‘grace-note’ conforms with the definition in the Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford, 1933) of ‘additional notes introduced into vocal or instrumental music, not
essential to the harmony or melody’ (vi. 326).
843
Frederick Neumann, Ornamentation and Improvisation in Mozart (Princeton, 1986); Rosenblum, Performance Practices.
844
Türk, Klavierschule, III, §4 and n., recommended that composers write appoggiaturas in full-size notes, leaving the small notes for grace-notes.
845
Quantz, who, unlike C. P. E. Bach, did not advocate the practice of showing a precise value for appoggiaturas, still used a quaver indiscriminately for almost all of them in his
Versuch ; but according to Edward R. Reilly (Quantz, On Playing the Flute, 91) his Sei duetti op. 2 of 1759 began to show a change of attitude.