Understanding note stems as written in Mozart's K.331 Andante Grazioso
I have difficulties in interpreting two peculiar notes in Mozart's K.331 Andante Grazioso. I hope you can help in improving my performance.
First question is about the D note evidenced with the arrow:
How should I play that? It seems part of the previous chord, but the score shows it detached, so I am not sure how to approach that.
Another, maybe easier, question is about the very last A of the score (before the variations), you can see that with an arrow.
It shows both up and down stems. Is there a particular way I should interpret it?
(3)3 Comments
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In the first case, because the D has its head so close to the E, it needs to be printed as it is. Otherwise it would be a big blob. Also, it belongs to the lower part of the tune, so its stem is pointing down. You play D, E, G♯ and B all together.
Although it's not all written out satb, there are parts where stems go up, stems go down, but not in the usual tidy way. The last A note'belongs' to both s and a parts, thus has two stems. It gets played as the one note, A.
Like most piano scores, this one contains both literal 'what note to play' instructions and musical explanation. Looking at your second example, the final A is played only once. It is the culmination of two musical lines - the little C#, B, A rundown and the G#, A under it. The composer considers it useful to show this, and I agree.
A similar 2-part texture is happening in your first example. The D is offset for a simply practical reason. See below for the (obviously unacceptable) alternative.
This 3 part setting becomes devided in 4 parts in the last bar where as the down stemmed notes in the upper stave are the continuation of the tenor voice. The chord with the D you’re asking is containing even 5 tones and in cases like this one note has to be placed a few behind the others for better reading and for notation reasons.
The final A of this section belongs to the sopran and alto as Tim explained and no, you can‘t play it in a special way. But in the first example you might actually emphasize the tenor line of the last bar with that D as sixth parallels of the soprano.
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