In some mid-1820’s orchestral pieces I have looked at, there is a mixture of the “slashed” quarter notes and half notes with some also having the dots and most others not. My first thought was that the slashes alone, as happens for perhaps 98% of the time, would be sufficient to indicate that the notes are to be divided into eighths. Then you get some with the slashes AND the dots. Would this indicate staccato, or would it simply be inconsistency in the typesetting? The attached picture shows two examples of the sort of thing I described.
Anyhow, my main reason for continuing this topic is to point out the difference in playback behaviour in the Viola when it is notated with exactly the same notes and playing technique as the Violins, Cello and Bass. Whether my assigning of the staccato Playback Technique to my newly-created Playing Technique is correct/authentic, etc. or not is somewhat of a secondary matter (not less important, though), and I will quite happily take notice of those with more knowledge on the subject than I have.
To see if any other string instruments displayed the same difference in playback behaviour, I spent some time changing the Viola to each of the stringed instruments available. Apart from those stringed instruments which are plucked (Guitarrón, Kora, Koto, Oud, Shamisen, Tambura, Tanpura and Zither), all the others except two changed articulation at the marked places. Apart from Viola, the two where the playing technique made no difference were Treble Viol and Treble Viola da Gamba.
I also tried changing the clef and the pitch of the notes. As expected, that made no difference to the results.
