Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 1.djvu/25

ACCENT. backward or forward a syllable, as for instance in the line


 * ‘Stop! for thy tread is on an Empire's dust,’

where the first syllable instead of the second receives the accent, so in music, though with much more frequency, we find the accent transferred from the first to some other beat in the bar. Whenever this is done it is always clearly indicated. This may be done in various ways. Sometimes two notes are united by a slur, showing that the former of the two bears the accent, in addition to which a sf is not infrequently added; e.g.

In the former of these examples the phrasing marked for the second and third bars shows that the accent in these is to fall on the second and fourth crotchets instead of on the first and third. In Ex. 9 the alteration is even more strongly marked by the sf on what would naturally be the unaccented quavers. Another very frequent method of changing the position of the accent is by means of. This was a favourite device with Beethoven, and has since been adopted with success by Schumann, and other modern composers. The two following examples from Beethoven will illustrate this:

In the following example,

will be noticed not merely a reversal of the accent, as in the extracts from Beethoven previously given, but also in the last three bars an effect requiring further explanation. This is the displacing of the accents in such a way as to convey to the mind an impression of an alteration of the time. In the above passage the last three bars sound as if they were written in 2-4 instead of in 3-4 time. This effect, frequently used in modern music, is nevertheless at least as old as the time of Handel. A remarkable example of it is to be found in the second movement of his Chandos anthem ‘Let God arise.’

As instances of this device in the works of later composers may be quoted the following:

In both these passages the accent occurring on every second instead of on every third beat, produces in the mind the full effect of common time. It is in quick movements that this modification of the accent is most often found; that it may nevertheless be very effectively employed in slower music will be seen from the following example, from the Andante of Mozart's ‘Jupiter’ Symphony, in which, to save space, only the upper part and the bass are given. It will be noticed that the extract also illustrates the syncopation above referred to.