Portato (;
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
past participle of ''portare'', "to carry"), also mezzo-staccato, French notes portées, in music denotes a smooth, pulsing
articulation and is often notated by adding dots under
slur markings.
Portato is also known as articulated legato.
Description
Portato is a bowing technique for stringed instruments, in which successive notes are gently re-articulated while being joined under a single continuing bow stroke. It achieves a kind of pulsation or undulation, rather than separating the notes. It has been notated in various ways. One early 19th-century writer,
Pierre Baillot
Pierre Marie François de Sales Baillot (1 October 1771 – 15 September 1842) was a French violinist and composer born in Passy. He studied the violin under Giovanni Battista Viotti and taught at the Conservatoire de Paris together with Pierre R ...
(''L’art du violon'', Paris, 1834), gives two alternatives: a wavy line, and dots under a slur. Later in the century a third method became common: placing "legato" dashes (
tenuto
In musical notation, ''tenuto'' (Italian, past participle of ''tenere'', "to hold"), denoted as a horizontal bar adjacent to a note, is a direction for the performer to hold or sustain a note for its full length.
Its precise interpretation can ...
) under a slur. The notation with dots under slurs is ambiguous, because it is also used for very different bowings, including
staccato
Staccato (; Italian for "detached") is a form of musical articulation. In modern notation, it signifies a note of shortened duration, separated from the note that may follow by silence. It has been described by theorists and has appeared in music ...
and flying
spiccato
Spiccato is a bowing technique for string instruments in which the bow appears to bounce lightly upon the string. The term comes from the past participle of the Italian verb ''spiccare'', meaning "to separate". The terms '' martelé'', ''saltando ...
.
Currently, portato is sometimes indicated in words, by "mezzo-staccato" or "non-legato"; or can be shown by three graphic forms:
* a slur that encompasses a phrase of staccato notes (the most common), or
* a tenuto above a staccato mark (very often), or
* a slur that encompasses a phrase of tenuto notes (less common).
Portato is defined by some authorities as "the same as
portamento
In music, portamento (plural: ''portamenti'', from old it, portamento, meaning "carriage" or "carrying") is a pitch sliding from one note to another. The term originated from the Italian expression "''portamento della voce''" ("carriage of the v ...
".
See also
*
Bariolage The bowed string instrument musical technique ''bariolage'' ( or, since the word is a noun rather than an adjective, "odd mixture of colours", from the verb ''barioler'', "to streak with several colors") involves "the alternation of notes on adjacen ...
References
{{Violin family
Articulations (music)
Italian words and phrases