Hello,

I will be sitting my Grade 6 practical exam in about week. However, a contradiction has arisen in the last piece, C2 Prayer of the Matador, from the 2005/2006 syllabus.

When the right hand first comes it, there is a quaver rest, then an E quaver, then four more semiquavers on E.

However, there is a tie between the E quaver and the first of the semiquavers.

Does that mean that you play the quaver, hold it for an extra semiquaver and then just play the three remaining semiquavers, ie. playing the tie

OR

Do you play the quaver, then play the four following semiquavers in time, ie. not holding the semiquaver?

The reason for this is that there is a stress on the first semiquaver, which indicates that that note should be played (unless this is a mistake).

Another interpretation would be that the tie means to smoothly build up, but again I am unsure.

Just to sum my query: if you have a quaver tied to the first of four semiquavers (that all have stresses on them), do you play three semiquavers (using tie) or four (ignoring the tie because the first semiquaver has a stress that means its meant to be played).


Thanks!

Julia

I've not spoken to anyone official at the ABRSM about this one (hopefully someone who has will post here, or someone who has a different edition), BUT I'm confident that the tie is the correct item, and the tenuto accent is the mistake. Maybe in printing the edition, the copyist put tenuto accents on them all and didn't delete the unnecessary one, or maybe the composer just wrote it in a confusing way and the edition didn't clarify it.

Anyway, if you want an answer to practice with, I'd certainly do the tie, including for the exam.

...and they couldn't criticize you for doing a tie- and the music creates the proper feel and result with the tie.

I've just done a search of this Forum for just the word "Matador" (worth doing yourself), and one result was

http://forums.abrsm.org/index.php?showtopi...mp;#entry334561

which says that the ABRSM CD does a tie,

and the other posters all did a tie (excluding one person someone had heard, but not in an exam).

Hope that gives you confidence.

I did this grade 6, and tied the quaver. I got 29, and no comments about it so I assume it was fine...to me it sounds better like that anyway