Knut wrote: ↑21 Aug 2017, 09:39
John Ruggero wrote: ↑21 Aug 2017, 00:01
If so, now simply replace the staccato dotted quarter note with a quarter note and eighth rest.
Well, then it wouldn't be a portato anymore.
Since a staccato dot is simply an abbreviation for shortening a note and adding a rest after it, one might think of the two notations as interchangeable for the purpose of understanding the subject under discussion.
One also needs to understand what the portato touch means and how it is achieved in piano playing. The psychology of portato is that the notes are straining to be connected, but something is working against this to the point where they don't quite achieve it. This is produced by the arm gesture proceeding normally but the fingers over-holding the key, exerting much more pressure than is normally used in legato so that the release shortly before playing the next note is also somewhat difficult to achieve. (The touch has sometimes been described as "sticky".) The purpose of the touch to create a very tense feeling in the music as if it is straining and working at cross purposes to itself. While this is probably not what David wants here, the use of the rest instead of the dot often means something similar. There is an attempt by the fingers to connect across the rest, but some other mechanism is preventing it, often the arm making a slight upward departure from the keyboard within the normal gesture for continuity. So there is a difference between releasing a key willingly, so to speak, versus releasing it unwillingly. The slur over the rest shows the unwilling release of the key.
Knut wrote: ↑21 Aug 2017, 09:39
It sounds that what you are saying is that slurs in piano music not only is intended to show the legato groups, but serve an additional purpose that is completely technical, similarly to string instruments
Exactly. The arm gestures of piano playing are very much like bowing. And you are right, one must experience them oneself to really get it.
Also to be considered is that while slurs show legato groups, "legato" itself means more than simply "overlap the notes and then make a break". The slur means that the notes form a unbroken conceptual unit. This explains why slurs sometimes join on a single note or two tied notes. Two unbroken conceptual units are eliding. And just as elisions are shown in written language, so they must be shown in written music or the meaning is distorted, as when editors replace an elided group with a single slur.
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