I just noticed I have an upside-down "up bow" mark on one of the notes in the music I'm learning... Logically the bow should be a downbow, in context with the note & what's round it... I wonder if that's an alternative to the normal downbow mark, but the normal one is used elsewhere.... I thought it might be a misprint, but the music comes with both cello and viola part, and it's marked the same way in both.

Any ideas?

Melodic accent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melodic_accent ?

lol, that never occurred to me actually. Hmmm. To my mind it's more pointy than that though... it really does look like an upside down upbow sign... trying to remember, where to accents go if the stem of a note is going up? Below, as with a staccato sign? Cos this is above.

hmmm

It's definatly a accent.

Happy Halloween!

If that's the sign that looks like a witches hat I would expect to play it as an accent: orchestrally we get these "hats" a lot and they would usually be rather more explosive & vicious than the other accent which looks like a small diminuendo sign. Some composers seem to favour one sign more than the other though.

Thing is, it's in the last few bars of Le Cygne by Saint-Saens... I can't begin to imagine why one would want a vicious accent in that context...

I have the cello part in the Peters edition 7435, which also has a viola part on the other side of the sheet. It has an accent mark on the dotted minim starting on beat 1 in bar 24, and this appears in both parts.

I observe in both parts a crescendo hairpin across the whole bar 23, followed by a dim. in the second half of bar 24. Therefore, these two signs clearly imply that beats 1-3 of bar 24 are a point of climax. So, given this quite explicit dynamic context, a strong accent on the dotted minim as shown seems entirely legitimate, but a "vicious" one would be inappropriate.

I don't have the piano part to hand, what does it show?

See I would think the dynamic markings were enough, trying to hear it in my head with any kind of explicit accent and... hmm.

The piano part has no marking there, as far as I recall (it's downstairs!)

I found the same thing with a down bow sign today. Still an accent?

don't know!