Dan, it works as long as the first letter or the first combination of letters are not assigned to anything. Befor Flip was implemented, I set myself some commands to change the stem direction (something like cmd-h, up/down arrow)
we did a concert in the weekend including Mahler’s songs of the wayfarer (that guy seriously needed some help).
It had
“Piu Nicht Schleppen”
as one marking in it.
What I see, at the end of no. 2, is ‘Più. Nicht schleppen’ (note the full stop). Which is not nonsense: ‘Più’ I take to mean ‘Più mosso’, and ‘Nicht schleppen’ makes good sense in that context.
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you’re right. The engraver probably could have put mosso below the Piu. Piu just means “more”.
At least it demonstrates a precedent of using multiple languages for instructions within a single piece.
Definitely more no shlepping required at that point.
interestingly one thing which caused a lot of confusion (except for people like me who studied German) was the use of
daempfer ab, daempfer auf (please excuse transliteration of a umlaut). vs mit or ohne daempfer.
basically Mahler gave specific instructions about when to take off or put on the mute, c.f. which phrases should be played with or without mute.
In an attempt not to live up to my name, I’ve become known as the ‘motor’ behind quite a few ensembles!
Precedent isn’t always exculpatory… There’s also precedent for all kinds of criteria which are considered obsolete nowadays. And besides, there is no guarantee that the engraving respects all options taken by the composer. Language was one very common intervention in the editing process throughout that transitional period. Terms that could be “italianized” often were, up to the mid-20th century, when consensus finally tipped on this regard.
Why do you still use Italian as a technical language in music? And why one has to mix Italian, French (laissez vibrer!), German (Ftzg!) and English terminology in a score?
Textual indications are more symbols of a technical vocabulary, more than actual linguistic elements. So, we use them in the language they were first used as technical devices and not for their literal meaning. Here, connotation is more relevant than denotation. Espressivo is a really expressive word, even if nobody would use it in their everyday life.
Most of the modern ‘Italian’ terminology appeared in the late 1500, and developed until mid-1700 while the various Italian schools dominated the European music. Some of the words/sentences we use today are obsolete Italian, no longer used in common talk. Take for example ‘sordino’: modern Italian would be ‘sordina’, with even a change of gender. ‘Allegro assai’ would sound funny, more than happy, in conversation.
During 1800, German and French musical technology replaced the Italian’s as the dominant ones, so many French and German terms started to appear. Impressionism had a huge influence on music from the end of 1800, and Stravinsky used a lot of French terminology. Mahler, Strauss and Schoenberg were other major influences at the beginning of the 20th Century, so there are words or abbreviations, like ‘Ftzg’ or ‘Sprachestimme’, we use as musical symbols, without even asking what they really mean from a linguistic point of view.
Then, English is the new Italian in music. During the next century, musicians will wonder what those obsolete English terms did actually mean.
Paolo
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There’s certainly a tradition of certain harp techniques remaining in French, no matter what the language of the score: besides “laissez vibrer,” we have “près de la table” and “sons étouffés,” which are widely understood and might actually be more confusing if translated.
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Another area you’re likely to see french is in bowing techniques. I’ve never seen another language version of e.g. martele or fouette
Martellato?
(But I expect some expert will jump in to say they are not quite the same thing!)
Roberto Braccini’s “Practical Vocabulary of Music” lists translations for all four used languages (English - German - Italian - French):
martellato (I) - hammered (E) - gehämmert (G) - martelé (F)
archeggiamento (I) - whipped (E) - gepeitscht (G) - fouetté (F)
And for the topic of this thread:
fate vibrare / lasciate vibrare (I) - make vibrate (E) - vibrieren lassen / klingen lassen (G) - laissez vibrer (F)
lasciar vibrare (I) - let sound / let vibrate (E) - klingen lassen (G) - laisser vibrer /résonner (F)
Google didn’t find that anywhere, till after a bit of poking around I discovered his name is B_r_accini.
That’s true. Sorry! Corrected my post.
It’s funny that détaché and staccato are literal translations of each other, but quite different bowing techniques (nowadays at least).
except that the martele (bowing) technique is nothing to do with hammering. It’s interesting how all these words diverge in meaning over time.
For those who like to explore oddities or specificities of orchestral usage and nomenclature, Norman Del Mar’s Anatomy of the Orchestra is unique. It makes a point of discussing details seldom or never mentioned in other books, like prevalent languages for certain terms, or cryptic indications found in certain scores (like Mahler’s “Mediator” for harp).
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I was once playing some Messiaen, with a French term that didn’t seem to mean anything. I phoned a well-known pianist who had recorded the set of pieces (who shall remain nameless)… He had no idea either…
As far as I know, the usual English equivalent of l.v. is ‘let ring’. ‘Make vibrate’ is only a formally correct translation — I don’t believe anyone would write it in a score. And Braccini’s other options — ‘let sound’, ‘let vibrate’ — are not much better. So I have limited faith in this authority.
Ooh, I have one of these. The portuguese word “corta” means “to cut”, which is an homonym of the italian word for “short”. This led a very well respected portuguese pianist to greatly extend fermatas marked “short” on the music of a composer she had a close relation with before his death, when the marking meant precisely that the fermata should be very brief. This went on for years…