Any idea what these rectangular articulation marks mean?
This is from “Bouquets de Melodies pour Piano par Ferdinand Beyer, op. 42” published by Schott (late 1800s) .
Mhh, newer saw something like this. It may be a typography glitch (mistake).
As well as the four instances you have indicated, this rectangular marking occurs in three other places in the same piece. In all seven occurrences there is a long(ish) note where a player might possibly want to change fingering or hand position, or lift the hand early to give time to move to the next note which is some distance away. My guess, and it is only a guess, is that the rectangular marking might indicate to hold the long note for as close to full value as the player can manage. I can only speculate based on the context, as I have never seen this marking in piano music before, so it is quite possible that I am wrong. It would be interesting to hear any other suggestions as to what is intended by Mr Beyer.
I checked the record for Bouquets de mélodies, Op.42 (Beyer, Ferdinand) at IMSLP, and it looks like this symbol appears just on this one plate.
https://imslp.org/wiki/Bouquets_de_mélodies%2C_Op.42_(Beyer%2C_Ferdinand)
I tried Facebook for you (which I think you saw)… no consensus so far.
An early example of “missing font” issue!
I’ve had the same idea, but found that there are two different sets of plates (2363 and 7211) and they both show the same rectangle…
Thanks. I didn’t see it. Which group on Facebook?
Interesting, plate 2363 is missing some marcatos, accents and slurs, but the rectangles are still there…
That would be Music Engraving Tips.
This is interesting. At least this plate tells us that these symbols are most likely not implying anything pitch-related, as the second one is placed below the staff here, other than in the first plate, where it is placed on the D3-line in the left hand.
Wouldn’t this be a kneeler indication (equivalent to the pedal on pianofortes from the late eighteenth century?).
This type of indication was not standardised.
The fact that this rectangle is placed sometimes under the left hand, or sometimes under the right hand, can be explained by the fact that, on these pianofortes, the forte pedal was spread over two or three “rangs” (in French), and did not concern all the strings, but only basses or medium ones.
You are right ; these could be not, so, a pedal marking.
But, it is possible that is another “mode de jeu”.
A mode of playing specific to a particular model of fortepiano. It should not be forgotten that some had built-in percussion, such as that used by Mozart for his Turkish March (sonata K.331).
At that time, each pianoforte was a specific model from one manufacturer to another, and there were also a lot of experiments with no future…
On a side note: On a piano of Mozart’s time, some passages of the Alla turca already sound absolutely percussive without any additional percussion register, especially those fast lefthand arpeggios. To emulate this sound on modern pianos, a player would have to play a cluster there.
Yes, indeed.
But the model for which this movement was written included a cymbal, and it was Constanze who struck a tambourine (cf. Mozart’s correspondence).
Many organs also have this type of «toy» (sometimes small “serinettes”).
I had a quick look at these paraphrases of opera arias.
The date of publication (1844, 1850) rules out my previous explanation, as the pianos of that period were no longer Mozart’s. Pedal is indicated as use : Ped *
I note, however, that this rectangle appears only, apparently, in the paraphrase of Lucia, but not in the others (Faust, Huguenots, etc.).
Celui qui trouvera la réponse aura droit à un kilo de vraies madeleines de Commercy.
I wonder if a dash (—), indicating holding a note at full length, was standardized in 1850s? Could this be it?