During the Baroque period, the unwritten arpeggio was considered an ornament, often
used in the performance of the lute, harpsichord, and clavichord. For an example relevant to
keyboard players, in some Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach's fantasias the indication "arpeggio"
appears, and the passage is noted only with the soprano melody, bass notes and figured bass
(Figure 3). In these places, the kind of chords and the range are provided by C.P.E Bach, but
the way to arpeggiate them is left to a musician’s discretion as improvisatory ornaments.
Portato was interpreted by some musicians at the beginning of the 19th century
as playing slightly delayed playing from the bass notes (see in section 2.4); the potato
indication on chordal passages was also sometimes interpreted as a suggestion to play with
arpeggios. Ignaz Moscheles (1794–1870) provided an example in his Studies for the
Pianoforte Op. 70 (London, 1827): “They should be struck very slightly in the Arpeggio
manner, giving them the same length of time as a dot under a slur requires."3
As seen in section 2.4, Friedrich Kalkbrenner (1785–1849) limited the place to use
unnotated arpeggios, instead suggesting that “in double notes, octaves and chords, the long
notes should be played in arpeggio, those which precede them should not.”4
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Unnotated arpeggiation is the playing of chords as an arpeggio where they are not notated as such by the composer. Generally, the notes are played from the lowest pitch to the highest,
and the result sounds similar to dislocation. However, Peres Da Costa states, "Arpeggiation differs from dislocation in that separation of the hands—playing one hand after the other—is not
the underlying principle. And [...] the practice of arpeggiation can be seen to stem from a different root."1
According to Peres Da Costa, in early piano recordings pianists arpeggiated chords to achieve the following:
- Emphasize melody notes by delaying and setting them apart from the harmonic accompaniment
- Provide a cushion of sound supporting the melody note
- Enhance the effect of poignant harmonies by strengthening or softening them
- Give particular effect to special accents such as sforzando
- Enliven the momentum of the music, propelling it forward
- Enrich the sound and or texture of the musical material
- Delineate the boundaries of phrases
- Give separation to overlapping melody lines played in one hand2
1. Peres Da Costa, Off the Record: Performing Practices in Romantic Piano Playing, 102.
2. Ibid.
3. Ignaz Moscheles, Studies for the Pianoforte Op. 70, ed. Ernst Pauer (New York: G.Schirmer, 1897), XIII.
4. Friedrich Kalkbrenner, Pianoforte-Schule, Op.108 (1832 or earlier), translated to English (Edinburgh: Alexr. Robertson, n.d.), 10.
