A qualification of Expression and particularly of Accentuation and Accent. 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 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. 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.
P. Cerone: El melopeo y maestro (Naples, 1613/R)
C.P.E. Bach: Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen, i (Berlin, 1753/R, 3/1787/R), ii (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, xxv (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, iv (1968), 11–30 [in Jap. with Eng. summary]
D. Holý: ‘Medicion del ritmo, la agogica y el tempo en la musica popular’, AnM, xxxix–xl (1984–5), 161–72
G. Lechleitner: ‘Agogik: Aufführungspraxis im Spiegel der Zeit’, SMw, xxxvi (1985), 309–18
P. Nørgård: ‘Flerdimensional agogik’ [Multidimensional agogics], DMt, lxi/1 (1986–7), 19–25 [facs]
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
MATTHIAS THIEMEL