Manuscript Expressive Markings

I flew back to the United States on Wednesday and now embark on the post-travel blog posts.

My research in Vienna involved a deep dive into Beethoven’s copyists’ manuscripts. I had the opportunity to study manuscripts from Beethoven’s lifetime, many of which were used for world premieres. In such a treasury as the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, there are far more resources than I could go through in just five research days, but I did collect significant data which I am still mining for patterns. I transcribed copyist manuscript markings from the “Kyrie” in the Missa Solemnis, Op. 123; the Piano Fantasy, Op. 77; a section of the copyist’s score of Symphony 4; and multiple string parts from Symphonies 5, 7, 8, and 9. For Symphonies 7 and 8, I printed Nicholas Kitchen’s Manuscript Expressive Markings Editions (or MEMEs) so I could instantly compare the copyist’s dynamics with Beethoven’s. For most of the other pieces, I brought my own dynamic transcriptions either on my iPad or in print for easy reference.

As I’ve explained in earlier posts, I was specifically looking for evidence that Beethoven’s extended dynamic system had survived into copyist manuscripts before being standardized by the publication process. In particular, I looked at the underlining of piano dynamics, the occurrence of extra letters (as in ffmo, ppmo, and for), and a distinction between open and closed hairpins. Although I still need to go over my notes in greater detail, a few general observations follow.

Underlining piano dynamics

The copyists I studied generally fell into one of four different camps when underlining piano dynamics, reflecting different handwriting styles. Some copyists underlined every piano dynamic, whether p or pp; others underlined almost none of them; some others underlined pp but not p; and for others there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to whether they underlined or not. For example, in the two Missa Solemnis copyist scores that I studied, there are twelve pps printed in the score in m. 59 (for twelve instrumental voices). One copyist underlined eight out of the twelve pps, didn’t underline three of them, and forgot one. Another copyist underlined nine pps and didn’t underline three. Comparing these two copyist manuscripts to each other, only one of the non-underlined pps are in the same voice, and not one of these underlinings came from Beethoven because he didn’t underline anything at all!

No copyist regularly double-underlined anything. If there is a double-underline in a copyist’s score or part, it is usually in Beethoven’s handwriting, likely added as a correction. On one occasion (Symphony 7, vln 1/1, mvt. 2, m. 208), Beethoven wrote a pp//mo correction in pencil and the copyist traced over the entire correction in black ink, but on another occasion (Symphony 7, vln 1/1, mvt. 1, m. 44), Beethoven’s p// in pencil was simply traced as p. The copyist didn’t see a need to preserve the underlines in ink as well.

These underlining habits seem to be based merely on the copyist’s style and not related at all to Beethoven’s underlinings in the autograph. One reason for underlining could be signaling abbreviation. In manuscripts from this era, Allegro is frequently shortened to All//o and Primo to P//mo. This practice would be similar to the way we abbreviate with a dot (Dr. for Doctor or Drive) or with an underline (as in 1st/ or 2nd/).

Beethoven may have written some of the double-underlines in the copyist manuscripts because he wanted to draw attention to a correction. He frequently double-underlines a dynamic he adds where the copyist had left it out (sometimes because Beethoven had forgotten it himself in the autograph). Sometimes Beethoven will double-underline these corrections even where he had not underlined the original dynamic at all in the autograph (which is the case in the mvt. 2, m. 208 example above). So it seems that in these cases, the double-underline is not asking for a special dynamic color but for attention to the correction.

In summary, copyists underlined according to their personal styles rather than according to Beethoven’s autograph. There was no meaningful carryover of underlines from the autographs to the copies. If anything, copyists generally underlined far more than Beethoven did, but as a rule they only underline once. Interestingly, Beethoven shows the most variety in his underline usage. He will write dynamics with no underlines, with one, and with two, but copyists generally just use one or two of those options.

Extra Letters and Open vs. Closed Hairpins

I found more carryover from autograph to copy when looking at Beethoven’s use of extra letters and hairpins. For example, copyists portrayed Beethoven’s use of for as distinct from f numerous times in the third mvt. of Symphony 7 (string parts). Not always, but often. In fact, the 2nd violin copyist got excited and usually copied the 1st violin’s dynamic of for even when the 2nd violin was only marked f in the autograph.

Ffmo and ppmo were another case. Usually ffmo becomes ff in the copies, except for a few exceptional cases. With perhaps even more frequency, copyists write ffmo where Beethoven had only marked ff. Ppmo is almost always reduced to pp/. One tragic case of this flatlining occurs in the first mvt. of Symphony 7. Beethoven had carefully marked a special dynamic decrescendo in mm. 140-142 consisting of p, pp, and then pp// in the string parts - except for the 1st violins who get the special marking ppmo on that last measure. The copyist(s) for all of these string parts standardized these marks to p, pp/, and pp/. They added the usual single underline to the pp and totally ignored the double underlines and the extra letters on ppmo. They made Beethoven’s pp and pp// look exactly the same, and as a result we lose the incredible dynamic progression that Beethoven had so carefully marked in the autograph.

Copyists more consistently portrayed open and closed hairpins than Beethoven’s other MEMs, but still not 100 % accurately. Some copyists were especially careful to close hairpins over line-breaks, extending the hairpin lines far past the end of a line of music and beginning them well before the next line to make it obvious that Beethoven had written a closed hairpin rather than an open one. Additionally, in the opening of the 4th Symphony autograph, there are numerous closed hairpins on whole notes that are almost taller than they are wide. The copyist portrayed these virtually the same way in the score, giving them more of a vertical than horizontal diamond shape.

Of all these markings, I believe the one most likely to be relevant given the copyists choices is the open vs. closed hairpin. I do not know precisely what this would mean for performance, but Nicholas Kitchen suggests that the closed hairpin could indicate a single musical idea instead of two separate musical ideas. There has been fascinating research done recently about the way hairpins were meant to affect time as well as dynamics. In the music of Brahms a generation later, dynamic hairpins were meant to indicate a corresponding expansion and contraction of the tempo. I wonder whether Beethoven might have envisioned two different temporal meanings for the open and closed hairpins rather than simply a different placement of particular decibel levels. A focused study on Beethoven’s hairpins might yield fruitful results.

The front entrance of the Wiener Musikverein concert hall, which also houses the archives of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde.

The interior entrance to the archive, complete with a doorbell and security camera. Immediately behind this set of locked doors was another set.

Bösendorfer, the renowned piano company, resides in the same building.

The interior hallway ceiling