What does "unarticulated" mean?

[1piano4joe]

Hi all,

I've seen/heard this word all over the place. Strangely, a google search did not turn up a satisfactory musical definition. Also, I used "onelook dictionary search" and found the word listed in 15 different resources, looked in all of them and am still bewildered.

Has anyone ever seen a definition of this word?

Does it mean a COMPLETELY unadorned note?

A note all by itself with no instructions whatsoever as how to play it?

So, no legato to or from the note then?

No staccato, tenuto, portamento or accents allowed as these would be considered articulation?

What about a quarter note tied across a bar line to another quarter note. Is this still considered unarticulated? I'm thinking that a tie IS an articulation but is it?

I just follow the score but often it is unarticulated or editorial.

I'm learning a new piece and the directions say to, "Play all unarticulated quarter notes and eighth notes staccato". This is the "Sonatina in Bb Major, Op. 4, No. 8" by Samuel Wesley who was an English organist and composer.

I'm told this is NOT a sonatina since it neither modulates to the dominant nor has a development section but, in fact, is a dance in rounded binary form. Is this right?

Supposedly, this articulation helps heighten the "spirit of the dance".

BTW, only one person on YouTube plays it this way.  

Thank you, Joe.

[j_menz]

Articulation is any marking which affects the duration of a note other than it's actual value. So,  staccato, staccatissimo, martellato, marcato and tenuto are all articulations. It also refers to any marking which affects the transition between a note an another note, such as ties and slurs.

In your piece, and unarticulated note is a note that has none of these markings.

The tie across bars is an articulation. Probably. If it's an off beat rhythm and all the like notes are of the duration of the tied notes and would otherwise qualify as not articulated, I'd treat the tied one as unarticulated too, just for consistency, though it technically isn't.

The direction to use staccato on those notes is most likely editorial, so should you choose to do so you can ignore the instruction.

I don't know this piece, and the score isn't on IMSLP, so I can't comment on it's form. I note that Samuel Wesley wasn't much in favour of dancing, so I'd treat the suggestion it was intended to be one with some caution.

[1piano4joe]

Hi j_menz,
 
Here is a link for the free score www.scoreexchange.com/scores/51087.html

Thank you, Joe.

[j_menz]

Hmm.. I had the wrong Wesley in mind (his son, SS Wesley). This chap was a little less on the puritanical side it seems. I still don't see it as a contemporary dance style, though it certainly seems to have a rather lively feel to it.  I don't claim a thorough knowledge of less common (or, perhaps more common in the other sense of the term) dances of the period, but this doesn't conform to one I recognise. 

Sonatina is a somewhat imprecise term, and Handel had written a piece so called which is about as short as this one.  I wouldn't sweat the lack of conformity to what later sonatinas looked like, though it  is rather different from them or indeed most of its contemporaries.

[michael_c]

I'm learning a new piece and the directions say to, "Play all unarticulated quarter notes and eighth notes staccato". This is the "Sonatina in Bb Major, Op. 4, No. 8" by Samuel Wesley who was an English organist and composer.

The advice is basically sound, although "staccato" would be an exaggeration. The piece in question is presumably from the late 18th century. In music of this period it is normal not to hold notes to for their full written length unless there is a specific making that demands it: legato, tenuto or a slur. The authorative work on piano playing at this time was C. P. E. Bach's Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen ("An Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments"). Bach explicitly states that a note that is not marked staccato, legato or tenuto should be held for half their written value, adding that this applies in particular to eighth and quarter notes.

A note that is actually marked staccato should be held for less than half its written value.

The notes that are tied over the barline should clearly be held over the barline, but I would also shorten them after the barline so that each one practically becomes a quarter tied to an eighth note followed by an eighth note rest.