Slur [bind]

Slur [bind]
Geoffrey Chew

https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.25977
Published in print: 20 January 2001
Published online: 2001

In musical notation, a curved line (or square bracket etc.) extending over or under a succession of notes to
indicate their grouping as a coherent unit, for example in legato performance, or for purposes of phrasing.
The term is also applied to the musical effect associated with the notational slur, which is invariably a
sense of coherence and continuity. In general, on string instruments, all notes grouped under a slur are
taken within one stroke of the bow if possible, whilst for wind players and vocalists, slurs serve to some
extent as breathing instructions.

The earliest form of the slur was the Tie, a term used only for slurs between notes of the same pitch, even if
differently spelt, for example A♭ to G♯. In the 16th century, keyboard music, in which bar-lines were used,
required some such device in order to permit the notation of chords or notes extending beyond the bar-
line; the tie was not otherwise necessary at the time, since the note durations in the 16th-century
repertory could all be expressed in terms of single notes, dotted or undotted. The earliest source containing
ties is Cavazzoni’s Recerchari, motetti, canzoni … libro primo (1523). Generally speaking the tie has continued
to be used exclusively for notes that are not to be repeated, except when the first of the two notes tied is
qualified by a staccato dot, when the tie is sometimes converted into a slur in the broader sense, and the
second note is to be sounded and grouped with the first (as in ex.1).

Ex.1 Liszt: Consolations for piano, no.6

No general need has ever been felt to eliminate the few possible ambiguities in the use of slur and tie, but
Matthay (1928) claimed that a notated slur between two notes of the same pitch was a tie only when it
joined the note-heads, but a slur when it joined the ends of the stems; and Sterndale Bennett
recommended the use of a squared slur-mark to distinguish the tie (ex.2, from Stainer and Barrett:
Dictionary of Musical Terms, 1898, p.58).

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Ex.2

In the 17th century the slur between notes of different pitches took on the function earlier fulfilled by
ligatures, since no ligature signs existed to join minims or smaller note values to each other (Praetorius:
Syntagma musicum, iii, 2/1619). It is commonly used in 17th-century vocal music, with all the notes to be
sung to a single syllable slurred (and often beamed) together. In this context the slur may be regarded as a
type of ornament (see Ornaments, §8); no connotations of phrasing etc. are normally intended.
Surprisingly, this conventional vocal notation has survived all notational reforms, and it is still used in
most vocal music. From the 17th century the slur was also used in instrumental music, broadly with its
modern meanings of bowing (John Playford: A Breefe Introduction, 7/1674, p.36), breathing or tonguing.
Such symbols are not at this date used rigorously or systematically, however, and must be interpreted with
some latitude (for the use of the slur to indicate various types of bowstroke, see Bow, §II).

In some Baroque music, the slur carries rhythmic connotations. Couperin, by dotting the second of pairs of
slurred quavers, indicated that they were to be played unequally, short–long; but the device is uncommon.
A slur over several notes may indicate that they are to be played equally rather than as notes inégales.

From the 18th century, the slur, over white-note keyboard scales, may indicate glissando (as in ex.3);
vertical slurs beside chords indicate that the chords are to be broken; and slurs over melodies generally
indicate legato – the most frequent use of the sign in the period 1750–1850. Such legato slurs may be
longer than in modern practice, for example in string music; or they may be shorter, for example, broken
at the ends of bars without implying corresponding breaks in the legato. Some composers, such as Mozart,
were more precise than others in their use of the slur, but no composer of this period used it precisely in
accordance with post-Riemann practice (ex.3).

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Ex.3 Weber: Concertstück op.79 (1823 edn)

To speak of phrasing slurs before the second half of the 19th century is, strictly, anachronistic: it was only
during that century that the beginnings and ends of slurs came invariably to carry their modern
connotations of the beginnings and ends of phrases (first, according to Matthay, in the music of Joachim
Raff). In consequence, Hugo Riemann believed that the notation of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and others
was by now misleading and in need of radical revision; and he brought the slur into the service of phrasing
theory (see Articulation and phrasing). In his phrasing editions, in particular, Riemann used the slur (as
well as the beam and other devices) to mark off Motive and their multiples and submultiples: these are
defined in his Musikalische Dynamik und Agogik (1884) as basic rhythmic units of phrasing, each normally
comprising a growth phase and a decay phase and each implying a subtle use of dynamics and agogics.
Riemann’s Motiv includes all that is normally implied in the modern term ‘phrase’, and more: some of the
Motive in his editions, duly marked off with slurs, comprise only rests.

Schenker’s reaction against the phrasing editions of Riemann and others (1925) took the form of a plea for
a return to the Urtext and, with it, the ‘non-phrasing’ slur, connoting only legato. At the same time,
Schenker’s graphic analyses of tonal works use the slur for novel purposes: the groupings of Züge, or
melodic progressions within the part-writing. Other novel types of slur in the 20th century include the

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square bracket in editions of early music to indicate the presence of ligatures in the original source (with
variations to indicate coloration), and graphically modified forms also to distinguish slurs added
editorially from those in the original.

Bibliography
M. Lussy: Traité de l’expression musicale (Paris, 1874, 8/1904; Eng. trans., 1885)

H. Riemann: Musikalische Dynamik und Agogik: Lehrbuch der musikalischen Phrasirung (Hamburg, 1884)

S. Macpherson: Studies in Phrasing and Form (London, 1911, 2/1932)

H. Schenker: ‘Weg mit dem Phrasierungsbogen’, Das Meisterwerk in der Musik, 1 (Munich, 1925/R), 41–60; Eng. trans.
(Cambridge, 1994), 20–30

H. Keller: Phrasierung und Artikulation (Kassel, 1955; Eng. trans., 1965/R)

E. and P. Badura-Skoda: Mozart-Interpretation (Vienna and Stuttgart, 1957; Eng. trans., 1962/R as Interpreting Mozart
on the Keyboard)

W.S. Newman: ‘Some Articulation Puzzles in Beethoven’s Autographs and Earliest Editions’, IMSCR XI: Copenhagen
1972, 580–85

B. Ganz: ‘Von den geschleiften und den gestossenen Tönen in der Claviermusik des 18. Jahrhunderts’, SMz, 114 (1974),
205–14

D. Barnett: ‘Non-Uniform Slurring in 18th-Century Music: Accident or Design?’, Haydn Yearbook 1978, 179–99

P. Farrell: ‘On the Use of Slurs in English Viol Music’, JVdGSA, 16 (1979), 5–21

B. Gustafson: ‘Shapes and Meanings of Slurs in Unmeasured Harpsichord Preludes’, French Baroque Music, 2 (1984),
20–22

C. Schachter: ‘20th-Century Analysis and Mozart Performance’, EMc, 19 (1991), 620–24

See also

Notation, §III, 4(iv): Mensural notation from 1500: The joining and separation of notes

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