Accelerando

What it means

Accelerando goes back to the Italian accelerare, “to quicken”, and calls for raising the tempo little by little. It is abbreviated accel. The quickening is a process: it begins where the word is written and leads, over a stretch of a few notes up to several bars, into a distinctly faster pace. A target value is almost never named; how far it goes follows from the musical context.

Accelerando is the counterpart of ritardando and rallentando. It differs from più mosso in that there the playing becomes faster at once from a certain point, without transition. Related but not synonymous is stringendo: this means a pressing forward in which, alongside the tempo, the tension also grows, whereas accelerando at first concerns only the speed.

In the notation

The word or the abbreviation stands in italics above the staff and holds from that point. If the quickening extends over several bars, many editions carry a dashed line or a row of hyphens through to the end. The effect is ended by a tempo, tempo primo or a new tempo marking; where no such marking is given, it holds to the end of the section.

Musical use

An accelerando heightens the unrest and presses toward a goal. It stands typically in transitions, in intensifying passages before a climax, and in closing sections meant to sweep along toward the end. Many folk dances too follow the principle of a slow part passing into an increasingly faster one. Because the effect is strong, composers use the sign sparingly — an accelerando begun too early spends the intensification before it is needed.

Performance practice

Begin slower than you think: the most common weakness is that the first notes are already too fast and no reserve is left for the rest. Think the quickening in even steps and settle beforehand which tempo is to stand at the end. See that the notes do not become shorter but only denser — otherwise the passage sounds rushed rather than urgent. In an ensemble someone must lead; everyone else listens to the voice with the fastest motion, for that is where the tempo first becomes critical.