I’m reviewing some early Beethoven string quartets and although I’ve seen the notation a thousand times, when introducing VSTs and “legato”, an interpretation question arises. Note: this isn’t a “project”, just a way for me to study scores.
It wasn’t until the a bit later in the century that slurs for strings were (could also be) phrasing indicators. So how does one actually play that? Is it really all under one bow or bow changes at the end/start of slurs.
I know this one is a clear indication to change bowing on the F quarter.
Having played this quartet with many different cellists over the years, all I can say is: “it all depends…”
(I certainly don’t think the original was ever intended to be just a single slur over 3 bars)
As a cellist, I find those slurs very confusing and not really conveying a clear-enough message to me. For example: if I slur D to E, what should I then do? Slur E to F? But should the legato effect be interrupted or not? If not, why not slur everything together? (this independently of bowing used).
I have the same problem with Mahler and the wavy-like tens of successive slurs
… well, one can surmise that the passage should be played legato. As my main question was translating the slurs to VST-speak, I came to the conclusion that it could (should?) be translated as the 3rd example, one slur, so the VST plays a legato patch. But, since Dorico doesn’t distinguish between first-note or last-note under slur, all 3 examples would just use the plain Legato switch.
