The Short

484 APPOGGIATURAS, TRILLS, TURNS
Ex. 13.39. Löhlein, Anweisung zum Violinspeilen: (a) 1st edn., 44; (b) 4th edn., ed. J. F. Reichardt
coulées, maywell have reflected their concern to ensure that grace-notes created the effect so clearly described by
Domenico Corri and were not given greater length than they required.
There is a good deal of musical common sense in this approach, for when grace-notes are conceived as preceding the
beat there is a real danger that they will be performed somewhat longer and more lazily, thus giving the effect of
anticipatory notes, than if they are thought of as coinciding with it. On the other hand, the laboured rendition that
grace-notes sometimes receive from modern performers who are anxious to leave no doubt that they are performing
them on the beat (often attempting, futilely, to give them a greater accent than the main note) seems equally contrary to
the nature of these notes. Neumann's arguments notwithstanding, it seems clear that in the case of the short
appoggiatura there was no requirement that it should really be louder than its main note. A sharper attack on the gracenote,
as recommended by C. P. E. Bach, or a more caressing one, as suggested by Leopold Mozart, has little to do with
the player's or listener's perception of metric or expressive accent. This misconception of the grace-note has
undoubtedly been encouraged by the idea that they are performed with a deliberate rhythm in the manner that many
musical examples, such as those of Corri, seem to imply. This once again results to a great extent from the modern,
literal approach to musical notation, which, especially with regard to minor modifications of the given rhythm, would
have been quite alien to an eighteenth-century musician. At that time Ex. 13.40(a) could, in some circumstances, just as
well mean Ex. 13.40(b), (c) or even (d) according to context, and, taken in conjunction with verbal descriptions, the
sense in which these graphic illustrations are to be understood becomes quite clear. Grace notes should, as Schilling's
EncyclopÄdie commented in the 1830s, ‘always be rendered as short as possible, for which reason, doubtless, they are
also called pinched appoggiaturas’; in addition it confirmed the view that they should as far as possible be accentless,
commenting that they
Ex. 13.40.