At 9:50 AM -0700 5/26/11, Ryan wrote:
Hi List,
A little unsure about the proper interpretation of this grace note in a Carl
Maria von Weber tune.
Clicking the link will download a 32KB jpg: files.me.com/ryanwbeard/dsc94z
The link doesn't seem to be a valid link. Oops! I lied. It didn't
work as a link, but it did when I pasted it into my browser.
Should the grace note come before the beat? Or should it come on the beat,
making the resulting rhythm 2 sixteenths followed by an eighth?
What you're asking is whether they are an appoggiatura or a grace
note, and unfortunately the answer is that judging by that single
example it could be either.
In general, however, the older practice described by C.P.E. Bach and
others holds through Mozart and Haydn. It's with Beethoven that the
questions start coming up. And of course von Weber was of
Beethoven's generation (although 16 years younger, and a cousin of
Mozart's wife, as a matter of fact). My instinct would be to treat
it as an appoggiatura, on the beat, taking half the value of the main
note, and to see whether that makes musical sense. I rather suspect
that the use of a slash through the stem was probably not yet
standardized for grace notes in von Webers's time, but I don't know
for sure. And I wonder whether that slash was original, or was added
by a later engraver.
John
--
John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music
Virginia Tech Department of Music
College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:john.how...@vt.edu)
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
"We never play anything the same way once." Shelly Manne's definition
of jazz musicians.
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