Dislocation is a momentary separation between the left and right hands in performance.1 In most cases, it means a delay in a melody note in the right hand after the
corresponding accompaniment note in the left hand. In early piano recordings, it appears more frequently in slow cantabile movements than in fast movements. Dislocations typically
occur at the beginning of the phrases, on expressive melodic notes, or at harmonically important or dissonant moments.2 Dislocation can be regarded as a relative of the earlier rubato
as it is warranted for musical expression in the melody, but it has slightly different applications. It has also been abused as an easy way to make a piece sound expressive and thus
became a bad habit of many performers in the 19th-century, especially among amateurs.3 As already mentioned in the previous section, there are also situations in which dislocation
can be realized as unwritten arpeggios between two notes.
Good or Bad Taste?
Sigismund Thalberg (1812-1871) described in L’Art du chant appliqué au piano, Op. 70 (Paris, c. 1853) about bad taste in regard to the use of dislocation:
It will be indispensable in playing to avoid that manner, which is ridiculous and in bad taste, of delaying with exaggeration the striking of the melody notes long after those of the bass and producing thereby, from one end of a piece to the other, the effect of continuous syncopation. In a slow melody written in long notes, it is effective, especially on the first beat of every measure or at the beginning of each phrase, to attack the melody after the bass, but only with an almost imperceptible delay.11
This statement also shows how bad taste in the use of dislocation was already prevalent, mostly among amateurs at this time. For these musicians, dislocation was an easy and instant
way to create an “expressive” effect; in some cases, they may have used it almost like syncopation on every beat. However, it must be made clear that earlier rubato also caused
misalignments of both hands, and this could even be implemented on every beat.
Harpsichord
In 1713, François Couperin (1768-1833) defined an ornament called the suspension (Fig.1), which shows the delay of melody notes. He says
that it is to be used in slow and tender pieces and that “in such cases where stringed instruments would increase their volume of sound, the
suspension of the sounds on the harpsichord seems by a contrary effect to produce on the ear the result expected and desired.”4 His intention
was to replicate this swelling of sound that could be produced by a bowed stringed instrument on the harpsichord through the use of dislocation
(suspension). In 1747, Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Forqueray (1699-1782) commented in a footnote of his arrangements of his father's viol pieces for
harpsichord: “This piece must be played sensitively and with great taste; to show the proper interpretation, I have added little crosses which
mean that the chords [or notes] in the left hand should be played before those in the right. In all other places, the right hand should play first.”5
The significance of this comment is that, for him, the sensitive expression and great taste come from dislocation. In addition to this, playing with
the right hand before the left hand is considered by him as standard technical practice. Timing is particularly crucial in harpsichord playing, as
almost no dynamic range is created by the instrument itself. Dislocated notes produce a variety of expressions and gestures, such as soft,
expressive or swollen sounds, and can point to the beginning, end, or high points in a phrase.
Portato
The portato was initially related to the playing of the clavichord. On the clavichord, it is possible to use a vibrato, which is called the bebung. C.P.E.Bach wrote that the potato
should be “played legato, but each tone is noticeably accented.”6 Daniel Gottlob Türk (1750-1813) explained the portato with “the dot [indicating] the pressure which every key must
receive” and the slur reminding the player “to hold the tone out until the duration of the given note has been completed.”7 In the early 19th-century, portato gained an additional
meaning. Louis Adam (1758-1848) adds that this technique greatly enhances the expression of the melody line and that sometimes portato is “made with a little retard on the note
which one expresses thus.”8
Kalkbrenner
One of my friends found9 a curious indication in Friedrich Kalkbrenner’s (1784-1849) Prelude Op.88 (1828) No.17 in A-flat major. In an adagio non-troppo and very cantabile
piece, he wrote "espressivo e ben insieme" at the beginning of the right hand's octave melody and at the arpeggio figures accompaniment left hand (Fig.2). However, Kalkbrenner
explains in his treatise: "In passages of double notes, octaves, or chords, the long notes must be arpeggiated; those that precede must not be. All the notes that have a placed above,
must be played together."10 Strictly speaking, he talks about arpeggios there, and not specifically about dislocation. Nevertheless, it is clear that he thinks notes do not have to be
played vertically together at all times. Does this "insieme" literally mean that they must be perfectly vertically synchronized, in today's sense of the word? Or does it suggest something
else? For example, could this paradoxically indicate that the previous section (an improvisational chorale with arpeggios and chords) can be played with considerable dislocation?
While this could be possible, I suspect this indication may refer to the frequency and extent of dislocation as the habit of abusing dislocation was widespread at that time. The use of
“insieme” might have been intended to make people aware of using dislocation appropriately.
Brée’s explanation in The Groundwork of the Leschetizky Method is quite consistent with Thalberg's view:
Neither should bass tone and melody-note always be taken precisely together, but the melody-note may be struck an instant after the bass, which gives it more relief and a softer effect. However, this can be done only at the beginning of a phrase, and usually only on important notes and strong beats. (It is better for the hands to coincide precisely on weak beats.) The melody-note must follow so swiftly as to make the pause hardly noticeable for the uninitiated.12
When listening to Leschetizky's own performances on piano rolls, for example, in Chopin's Nocturne No.8 Op.27-2
(Welte-Mignon 1906), the right hand indeed almost always plays behind the left hand (Audio 1). The delay is more
modest on the weak beats than at the beginning of the phrase, but still one can hear the asynchrony. Interestingly,
she also recommends using this technique sparingly for inexperienced learners. It shows that the technique was the
master's profound secret at the time and that it was difficult to explain in words the subtle and sensual way it was
used.
Edvard Grieg is also a contemporary pianist who avoided dislocation. The notes are more synchronized in his recording than those of other pianists of the time. While Grieg
studied at the Leipzig Conservatory, where Reinecke was teaching piano and composition, he was not satisfied with Reineck’s composition lessons.15 It seems he was uninfluenced
by Reinecke’s piano performance as well. In 1909, Hofmann advised against dislocation and branded it as “the worst habit” in piano playing, and later, in 1930, Gieseking labelled
dislocation as a “grievous offence against all musical feeling” and emphasized that for a successful expression “both hands must strike the keys precisely at the same moment.”16
1. Peres Da Costa, Off the Record: Performing Practices in Romantic Piano Playing, 45.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.46.
4. Couperin, Pièces de clavecin, Premier livre (Paris, 1713), 75. See also Hudson, Stolen Time: The History of Tempo Rubato, 24.
5. Hudson, Stolen Time: The History of Tempo Rubato, 26.
6. Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen Vol.1 (Berlin, 1753), trans. By William.J.Mitchell (W.W. Norton & Company, 1949), 156.
7. Daniel G. Türk, Klavierschule oder Anweisung zum Klavierspielen für Lehrer und Lernende mit kritischen Anmerkungen (1789. 2nd enlarged ed. 1802), trans. Raymond H. Haggh as School of Clavier Playing. Lincoln (University of Nebraska Press, 1982), 343.
8. Peres Da Costa, Off the Record: Performing Practices in Romantic Piano Playing, 70-71. See also, Louis Adam, Méthode du piano du conservatoire (Paris: Conservatoire impéral de musique, 1804/5), 156.
9. Thanks, Aruth Masrangsan, my fortepiano colleague at the Royal Conservatory in the Hague, for sharing this with me.
10. Friedrich Kalkbrenner, Pianoforte-Schule, Op.108 (1832 or earlier), translated to English (Edinburgh: Alexr. Robertson, n.d.), 10.
11. Hudson, Stolen Time: The History of Tempo Rubato, 196.
12. Brée, The Groundwork, 72–73.
13. Hudson, Stolen Time: The History of Tempo Rubato, 195. See also, Eigeldinger, Jean-Jacques. Chopin vu par sesélèves (Paris: Fayard, 2006), translated by Haruo Kometani, Hiroji Nakajima (Tokyo: Ongakunotomo, 2020), 76.
14. Peres Da Costa, Off the Record: Performing Practices in Romantic Piano Playing, 90.
15. Seidel, Carl Reinecke und das Leipziger Gewandhaus, 137 and 222-224.
16. Peres Da Costa, Off the Record: Performing Practices in Romantic Piano Playing, 96.
As W.A. Mozart's letter said (see section 2.3), the correct use of the earlier rubato is advanced and requires
complete independence of the left and right hands. Because of its difficulty, a similar but different technique—
dislocation—became a substitute and a common practice, although it was abused and criticized by many musicians as
being in bad taste. The dislocation was initially a technique, consciously or unconsciously, to soften the attack or the
sound attenuation of keyboard instruments and to make the melody more expressive.
However, some pianists of the same or slightly later generation as Carl Reinecke and Saint-Saëns attempted to exclude dislocation from their own playing even more rigorously or
criticized its use altogether. According to Ferruccio Busoni’s (1866-1924) student Egon Petri (1881-1962), “Busoni was the only pianist in Berlin around 1900 who studiously expunged from his
pianism the gratuitous arpeggio and bass anticipation of melody.”14 In his performance of Chopin’s Nocturne Op.15-2, recorded on the Welte-Mignon Piano Roll in 1905, we can hear
dislocations to such an extent that we can say they are comparable to Saint-Saens (Audio 3). Nevertheless, this paradoxically means that Berlin pianists generally abused more dislocation at
that time. In Busoni’s recording in 1922 of the same nocturne, the left and right hands are almost synchronized; only in a few places can a slight dislocation be audible. However, his right-hand
melody is still very expressive here (Audio 4). To me, it sounds like the left hand is trying to match the timing of the right hand. Clearly, he has changed his performance style in the 15 years
between these two recordings.
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A comment by Saint-Saëns about the true and wrong ways to use the dislocation and the relation with the
earlier type of rubato (he expresses only “rubato”, but it means “earlier rubato” here) is very perceptive:
Ah! This Tempo rubato—what errors are committed in its name! for there is the true and the false, as in jewels.
In the true, the accompaniment remains undisturbed while the melody floats capriciously, rushes or retards,
sooner or later to find again the support of the accompaniment. This manner of playing is very difficult,
requiring complete independence of the two hands; and when some cannot achieve this, they give the illusion
to themselves and to others by playing the melody in time and dislocating the accompaniment in order to make
it fall at the wrong time; or else--and this is the worst of all--they are content to play the two hands one after
the other. It would be a hundred times better to play everything evenly in time and the two hands together, but
then they would not have the “artistic air” [...]13
In fact, his recording of Chopin's Nocturne op.15-2 (Welte-Mignon, 1905) shows expressive dislocations,
although they are modest compared to those of Carl Reineke (Audio 2). The right-hand portato at the beginning
is always slightly delayed from the left accompaniment forms.
