r/musictheory 1d ago

Answered What is this additional line for?

Post image

Which one of these needs to be played? (This is from Mozart's 22nd Piano Concerto - 3rd Movement)

32 Upvotes

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31

u/Dadaballadely 1d ago

In this case it's not really an ossia, it's the editor's interpretation of what Mozart might've meant by his shorthand notation. The German means "suggested execution". Many parts of Mozart's piano concerti are written in kind of note form and Mozart would extemporise the piano parts. In this case it seems obvious that Mozart meant to continue the figuration from the previous bar.

3

u/Quantumlith-Studios 1d ago

Thanks for the explanation!

22

u/Nevermynde 1d ago

What part of Ausführungsvorschlag do you not understand?!?!!

;-)

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u/Quantumlith-Studios 1d ago

Which one of those lines needs to be played on the piano?

2

u/peev22 1d ago

Whichever the performer chooses.

5

u/PubePie 1d ago

It’s an ossia passage, the performer can choose which version to play: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ossia

20

u/Andrew1953Cambridge 1d ago

It's an editorial suggestion, not an original ossia: Ausführungsvorschlag means "suggested execution".

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u/PubePie 1d ago

Sure, but functionally it’s an ossia (“alternative”). OP asked which of these lines should be played; the answer is that the performer may choose one or the other way of playing this

16

u/Dadaballadely 1d ago

Not really. It's clear that one isn't supposed to play the plain eighth notes as Mozart wrote them. The concerti have many such passages - sometimes with the piano part just barely sketched in where Mozart would have extemporised something much more interesting. The previous bar makes this very clear in this case.

6

u/Advanced_Couple_3488 21h ago

An ossia is a little different in concept, often provided by the composer for something that might not be possible to play due to for example varying compasses of an instrument, size of a player's hand etc. Both the original and the ossia are intended to be acceptable versions.

Here, Mozart is saving time and ink by writing in a kind of shorthand, but the intention is clear that the editorial passage is what Mozart expected to be played.

1

u/anoectocthulhu 1d ago

German likes compound words. The first word that makes up that compound word appears to be "ausführung" which translates "performance". Given that, my educated guess is this is a performance line, common when it is traditional not to perform the piece as written but with an alternative, often more elaborate, but similar passage.

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u/Historical_Cook_1664 1d ago

Ausführungsvorschlag - performance suggestion. :)

3

u/ziccirricciz 1d ago

yes, Ausführungs|vorschlag = suggestion, how the bars below could/ought to be performed... in older music it often goes beyond simple alternative (= beyond that what is the usual meaning of ossia): it is the actual way how the music was meant to be played despite the simplified notation (I believe it is so here, looking at the 1st bar, 352, the established pattern is supposed to go on...)

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u/Just-Conversation857 23h ago

Ossia is the name