Clementi Op. 42 Lesson 5 Arietta (ABRSM Grade 1, A1), use of crescendo and diminuendo

Question

I'm new to piano (and music theory) and I'm a little confused by the notation used for what I understand to be crescendo and diminuendo for the Arietta A1 piece.

The first bar starts off with a "p" meaning "piano" or "quietly", then the next indication is a diminuendo > in bar 5 and then again > in bar 6, meaning even more quietly?

The next indication is then in bars 10 and 11 showing yet another diminuendo > in each bar??

I don't think this makes sense - have they missed out some crescendos from the music score?

Answer 1

I'm assuming that you mean this piece: http://www.sheetmusic2print.com/Clementi/Arietta-42-5.aspx.

The marking "p" means "softly," but not "as soft as possible", so you should be able to play more softly than "p". Make sure you start the piece loudly enough so you can do that!

The music divides up into four-bar phrases. I would interpret the dynamics as meaning that each 4-bar phrase (starting at bars 1, 5, 9, etc) should begin "p", and get softer towards the end.

The instructions on sheet music often leave a lot of the details to "common sense". Trying to indicate everything precisely, leaving nothing to the performer's imagination, is quite a modern idea.

Answer 2

There is a feeling of an appoggiatura in those measures. So I actually would start each of the measures with the strange decrescendos slightly louder than what came before, and then allow some decay through the remainder of the measure. In other words, allow yourself to lean into the appoggiatura.

So, in essence, to me those funny decrescendos function as a very lateral, spread-out sort of accent.

To discover the dynamic shaping that makes the most sense to you, sing your melody. Try it a few different ways and choose what you like best. Then make your piano line sound like what you sang.

Answer 3

A lot of times the dynamic signs have an interpretative character, they are not meant to be as a very hard prescription of the loudness of the piece. The exact loudness is left to be chosen by the performer. For example there is no consensus on how loud (say in decibels) a forte is or a pianissimo: it all depends on context.

Likewise the exact performance of diminuendo's and crescendo's are up to the performer.

On the other hand, having no indication of dynamics doesn't mean the performer has to keep a constant loudness for every note, either. On the contrary: playing like this would be very inexpressive and good phrasing would be impossible.

What's certain is that the composer (or, as in this case: the editor) wants you to perform the piece with the expression of piano and the expression of diminuendo at the right places.

In your case: it could be possible that a very slight almost unhearable crescendo between diminuendo's could help you to make this 'feeling' of continuing diminuendo possible.

Answer 4

I had exactly same question to my tutor actually. The answer was a bit "meh, kinda blah", in other words not precise. But in general I am constantly being told, and hopefully this helps:

• many of these markings are really very editorial, especially in A* pieces which are baroque or early classic. This means they are "up to you", only a suggestion. They are very likely not in the original score;

• many of these pieces in A* group are actually not original piano music (obviously) but rather perhaps harpsichord (or say organ). And all these dynamics are not possible on those instruments. So again, this is a modern adaptation to use these dynamics.

• what's more important is the legato/stocatto touch (especially in bass line) and phrasing, rythm, and getting the strong beats right rather than dynamics in those A* pieces. To get that more authentic feel.

So you see, perhaps it's not very important to get hung up on dynamics here, in simplictic terms :)

My personal interpretation of that piece, it might be helpful to think of it as a song, so those bars with "dims", think of someone singing on "one breath, one syllable", eg "ahhhhhhhhah", and then restarting the same from the next baat. You'd see it would be "dim" by the end each bar if you try to actually sing it.