A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Slur

by Franklin Taylor

SLUR. This word, taken in its original and widest sense, signifies an effect of phrasing which is more commonly expressed by the Italian term legato, i.e. connected. The sign of the slur is a curved line (Ger. Schleifbogen; Fr. Liaison) drawn over or under a group of notes, and the notes included within its limits are said to be slurred, and are performed with smoothness, if on a stringed instrument, by a single stroke of the bow, or in singing, on a single syllable. [See Legato, vol. ii. p. 112.] But although this was originally the meaning of the word, it is now used in a more restricted sense, to denote a special phrasing effect, in which the last of the notes comprised within the curved line is shortened, and a considerable stress laid on the first. This effect has already been fully described in the article Phrasing [vol. ii. p. 707.] In vocal music the slur is employed to indicate the use of Portamento (see the word), and it is also very generally placed over two or more notes which are sung to a single syllable. In this case however the sign is superfluous, since if the passage consists of quavers or shorter notes, the connection can be shown by writing them in groups instead of separate [see Quaver, p. 60], while even if the notes are crotchets, the fact of there being but a single syllable sufficiently indicates the legato. Moreover an effect analogous to the slur in instrumental music, whereby the second of two notes is curtailed and weakened, is perfectly possible in singing, and may very probably have been intended by the earlier composers where the sign of the slur is employed. This view is insisted upon by Mendelssohn, who in a letter to Mr. G. A. Macfarren^[1] strongly objects to the engravers of his edition of 'Israel in Egypt' placing the slur over two quavers or semi-quavers which are to be sung to one word.

When the slur is used in combination with a series of dots, thus

, it indicates the effect called mezzo staccato, in which the notes are made of longer duration than if marked with the staccato-sign only, being sustained for nearly their full value, and separated by a very brief interval of silence. [See also Staccato.]

[ F. T. ]

1. Goethe and Mendelssohn, 2nd ed. p. 77.