# Unknown articulation mark



## Korados

Hello everybody,

I just browsed through the score of Bartók's 44 Duos for Two Violins and noticed an articulation mark that I don't know. I googled but didn't find anything about it. It's shaped like a bold, vertical line which is placed at the end of a measure and goes across the two top-most lines of the staff. I wasn't sure if this is meant to be a caesura because they are normally written with two diagonal lines. I attached a screenshot shot for you!

Thank you for your help!


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## Gordontrek

That seems to serve no other purpose except perhaps to indicate the end of the rallentando section. It could also be a printing error. If it is musically significant in and of itself, it is probably not an articulation mark- those are usually marked above or near the articulated notes themselves.


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## Korados

Thank you for your answer but this mark appears several times throughout the score, so I think it's not a printing error.
It appears not only at a rallentando section, but anywhere at the end or sometimes even in the middle of a measure. When I researched correctly, this is supposed to be a damping mark, where the violinist should damp the strings. But unfortunately, I'm not exactly sure about this.


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