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The Orchestral String Portamento as Expressive Topic

2012; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 31; Issue: 2-3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/01411896.2012.680878

1547-7304

Raymond Monelle,

Music History and Culture

At some point between 1800 and 1850, orchestral string players began to use audible expressive portamenti between notes, both rising and falling. Even though early writers were apt to condemn these effects, it is clear that soloists were using them very early, partly in imitation of the singer's port de voix or cercar la nota, and that orchestral players, in spite of much criticism, were adopting them in the early nineteenth century. The advent of the universal portamento is marked by Bériot's Méthode de violon (1858) and, apparently, by Schumann's orchestral slow movements of the 1840s, which are obviously designed for the B-glissando. As an aspect both of performance and composition, it qualifies as a musical topic whose historical birth and development can be traced.