Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Notes to the Reader on Sources and Terminology
- Introduction The Pledge of Allegiance
- Part One Establishing an Historical Perspective
- Part Two The Art of Interpreting Rests
- Part Three Case Studies in Musical Punctuation
- Afterword
- Appendix A Translation of Marpurg's Lessons on Musical Punctuation, from His Kritische Briefe über die Tonkunst, vol. 2
- Appendix B Chronological Chart of Punctuation References
- Notes
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
- Eastman Studies in Music
Chapter Five - Punctuation vs. Articulation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 March 2023
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Notes to the Reader on Sources and Terminology
- Introduction The Pledge of Allegiance
- Part One Establishing an Historical Perspective
- Part Two The Art of Interpreting Rests
- Part Three Case Studies in Musical Punctuation
- Afterword
- Appendix A Translation of Marpurg's Lessons on Musical Punctuation, from His Kritische Briefe über die Tonkunst, vol. 2
- Appendix B Chronological Chart of Punctuation References
- Notes
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
- Eastman Studies in Music
Summary
These two areas, so closely related yet so sharply differentiated from one another, illuminate one another.
—Hermann Keller, 1955Articulation in the daily discourse of the modern musician has acquired such broad usage that its significance is often obscured. We speak of “articulating” this or that passage in a kind of catch-all manner with any variety of meanings and on any number of levels, many of which easily merge into the realm of punctuation. Take for instance the following two definitions of articulation from The New Harvard Dictionary:
(1) In performance, the characteristics of attack and decay of single tones or groups of tones and the means by which these characteristics are produced. Thus, for example, staccato and legato are types of articulation. In the playing of stringed instruments, this is largely a function of bowing; in wind instruments, of tonguing. Groups of tones may be articulated (i.e., “phrased”) so as to be perceived as constituting phrases…. (2) In the analysis of musical form, a boundary or point of demarcation between formal segments, e.g., that produced by a cadence or rest. As a compositional process, articulation is comparable to punctuation in language.
Writers on the performance practice of early music (anything from the seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth century) interpret articulation with much the same breadth: Sandra Rosenblum explains in 1988: “Articulation in performance is the delineation of motives or musical ideas by the grouping, separating, and related accenting of notes…. Through this clarification music gains shape and meaning analogous to that provided for language by punctuation and accentuation.” Donington comments in 1974 on “how extremely articulate early phrasing needs to be.” Ratner, writing in 1980, builds a definition of articulation which, in addition to slur and staccato indications, above all stresses clarity in performance, defining this as does Türk (in 1789) to include “the proper connection and separation of musical periods.” In 1985 Robin Stowell praises the efforts of the violinist Habeneck (in 1840) for his comprehensive illustration of the various techniques of “phrase articulation.”
Yet is such a comprehensive term a practical one?
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Art of Musical Phrasing in the Eighteenth CenturyPunctuating the Classical 'Period', pp. 121 - 149Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2008