Grove Music Online

Agogic
Matthias Thiemel

https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.00296
Published in print: 20 January 2001
Published online: 2001
updated, 25 July 2013

A qualification of Expression and particularly of Accentuation and

Periodicals, . The qualification is concerned with variations of
duration rather than of dynamic level.

A pause of breath of phrasing (suspiratio) is mentioned in a number

of organum sources, and in the 16th century the pause (suspirium)
was recognized as having affective value. Calvisius recommended
delaying or accelerating the beat in connection with the harmony
and the sung text (1602). Modifications of the basic tempo seem to
have become increasingly common during this period; they are
clearly described in Frescobaldi’s preface to his first book of
toccatas, and are also mentioned by Monteverdi.

One of the earliest pieces of evidence for the deliberate use of

agogic is Cerone’s mention of the practice of hesitation and holding
back in singing in such a way that ‘part of a note is taken away and
given to another’ (El melopeo y maestro: tractado de música theorica
y pratica, 1613, bk 8, chap. 1). Cerone included agogic in the
category of ‘accents’, adding that it should be used sparingly and be
barely perceptible. The deliberate abandonment of mechanical
regularity in note values (as distinct from actual distortion of the
metre) seems to have been less common during the Baroque era in
Germany than in Italy. Agricola, Marpurg, Hiller and Türk were
clearly less familiar with tempo rubato than Cerone, Tosi and other
Italian writers. Tosi used ‘rubato’ in the sense of the syncopated
displacement of a quaver in relation to the basic beat. Throughout
the 18th century agogic took a syncopated form: the accompaniment
kept time while the melodic part employed hesitations which
sometimes modified the rhythm considerably. C.P.E. Bach wrote that
‘the finest lapses from metre can often be industriously [that is
intentionally] produced’ when ‘one makes an alteration in one’s own
part alone, running against the organization of the metre, while the
main movement of the metre must be observed precisely’ (1753, pt i,
chap. 3, §8).

Romantic rubato is particularly associated with Chopin,

notwithstanding the testimony of the pianist Friedericke Streicher
that ‘he insisted on keeping to the strictest rhythm and hated all
lengthening and distortion, ill-applied rubato and exaggerated
ritardando alike’ (Chopin, Briefe und Dokumente, ed. W. Reich, 4/
1985, p.215). Writers of the time warned against the confusion of
dynamic diminuendo and agogic ritardando, and theorists in the late
19th century attempted to define terms more precisely. In his

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 commentaries and editions Riemann used the sign ^ to denote a
mild lengthening, or ‘agogic accent’, for instance at moments of
culmination. He introduced an oblique stroke as a musical
punctuation mark, reminding the performer that the tiny pauses or
caesuras serving the construction of musical sense and logic ‘must
not be subtracted from the last note before the caesura, but must
lengthen the duration of the whole’ (Karl Grunsky, Musikästhetik, 4/
1923, p.83). Riemann believed that strong metres should remain
perceptible in performance, but that the best method of emphasizing
them was ‘not dynamic but agogic’ (Musikalisches Wochenblatt,
1894, p.637). Certain syntactic functions such as musical climaxes,
transitions, secondary themes, reminiscences and conclusions
become evident only through sufficient agogic, however minimal it
may be in physical terms.

Among 20th-century composers, Bartók made especially free use of

agogic; in performing his piano piece ‘Abend auf dem Lande’ he
abbreviated or hastened some of the quavers by more than half their
notated value, while maintaining a constant inner pulse. Debussy’s
1913 piano-roll recordings reveal ‘that compensating rubato is far
from a myth in the performance practice of the early twentieth
century’ (Martin, 129). Agogic is also a feature of jazz performance;
rubato melodies performed above a regular unbroken
accompaniment were used to particularly good effect by Hoagy
Carmichael and Dinah Shore. A developed and differentiated theory
of agogic in keyboard and chamber music between Bach and Janáček
is that of Uhde and Wieland (1988).

Bibliography
P. Cerone: El melopeo y maestro (Naples, 1613/R)

C.P.E. Bach: Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier zu

spielen, 1 (Berlin, 1753/R, 3/1787/R), 2 (1762/R, 2/1797/
R); Eng. trans. of pts i–ii (New York, 1949, 2/1951)

H. Riemann: Musikalische Dynamik und Agogik: Lehrbuch

der musikalischen Phrasierung (Hamburg, 1884)

H. Riemann: ‘Zur Klärung der Phrasirungsfrage’,

Musikalisches Wochenblatt, 25 (1894), 637

K. Grunsky: Musikästhetik (Leipzig, 1907, 4/1923)

W. Reich, ed.: Frédéric Chopin: Briefe und Dokumente

(Zürich, 1959, 4/1985)

T. Kreutzer: ‘Chopin ni okeru agogik, tempo rubato, oyobi

pedaling ni tsuite’ [Agogics, tempo rubato and pedalling in
the music of Chopin], Memoirs of Kunitachi Music
College, 4 (1968), 11–30 [in Jap. with Eng. summary]

D. Holý: ‘Medicion del ritmo, la agogica y el tempo en la

musica popular’,
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 G. Lechleitner: ‘Agogik: Aufführungspraxis im Spiegel der
Zeit’,

P. Nørgård: ‘Flerdimensional agogik’ [Multidimensional

agogics],

J. Uhde and R. Wieland: Denken und Spielen: Studien zu

einer Theorie der musikalischen Darstellung (Kassel,
1988)

G. Lechleitner: ‘Agogik in der Interpretation solistischer

Klaviermusik: über eine neue Methodik in der
Interpretationsforschung’, Mitteilungen der
Österreichischen Gesellschaft für Musikwissenschaft, no.
20 (1989), 31–6

H. Danuser: ‘Agogik als Mittel musiksprachlicher

Darstellung: über ein Kapitel aus Carl Czernys
Vortragslehre’, In rebus musicis: Richard Jakoby zum 60.
Geburtstag, ed. R. Stephan (Mainz, 1990), 28–38

G. Fleischhauer, W. Ruf, B. Siegmund, and F. Zschoch:

Michaelsteiner Konferenzbericht - Tempo, Rhythmik,
Metrik, Artikulation in der Musik des 18. Jahrhunderts, 53
(1995)

E. Garcia-Novelli: Text-Music Accentual Divergence: a

Discussion of Accentual Factors and Suggestions for
Interpretation (diss., U. of Houston, 2002)

S. Martin: ‘The Case of Compensating Rubato’,

J. Rink, ed.: Musical Performance: a Guide to

Understanding (Cambridge, 2002)

R. Wieland and J. Uhde: Forschendes Üben: Wege

instrumentalen Lernens; über den Interpreten und den
Körper als Instrument der Musik (Kassel, 2002)

K. Lüdtke,: Con la sudetta sprezzatura:

Tempomodifikation in der italienischen Musik der ersten
Hälfte des 17. Jahrhunderts (Kassel, 2006)

P. Badura-Skoda and E. Badura-Skoda: Interpreting

Mozart: the Performance of His Piano Pieces and Other
Compositions (New York, 2008)

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 H. Gottschewski: ‘Alban Bergs Klaviersonate: Analyse im
Hinblick auf Interpretationsprobleme, mit besonderer
Rücksicht auf die Tempogestaltung’, Ewha Music Journal,
12/2 (2008), 173–89
See also
Accentuation
Accent, §2: Theory

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