Affettuoso
To be performed with heartfelt feeling.
What it means
Affettuoso means “with feeling, heartfelt” and calls for a warm, feeling-filled performance. The word goes back to affetto, the affect — the term with which the music theory of the Baroque designated the states of mind depicted.
The marking concerns the expression, not the tempo. It therefore usually stands as an addition to a tempo word, for instance in Andante affettuoso, and there says how the movement is to be shaped. Occasionally it also appears alone as a movement heading; a rather calm pace is then meant, one that allows the heartfelt character.
Related are con anima, espressivo and cantabile. They overlap in meaning; where a distinction is drawn, affettuoso means more the warmth of feeling, cantabile the songfulness of the line.
In the notation
The word stands in italics above the first system of a movement or section, usually after the tempo word, and holds until a new marking. It can become part of the movement’s name. It is frequently found with movements of widely arching melodic lines and restrained accompaniment.
Musical use
The designation belongs to the music of the Baroque and the Viennese Classicism, where it heads slow movements of heartfelt character. In sonatas and concertos it stands over middle movements, in vocal music over arias with a corresponding text. The doctrine of the affects of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries assigned particular musical means to such designations — a notion that was less strict in practice than the textbooks suggest.
The designation is bound up with the Baroque doctrine of the affects and was used especially in the eighteenth century for slow, sensitive movements. It calls for warmth in the tone and a singing leading of the line.
Performance practice
Shape across the line: a heartfelt performance arises from long arcs and carefully led transitions, not from strong rubato. Hold the dynamics back and work with fine gradations. Give dissonances and suspensions weight, for they carry the expression. And avoid exaggeration — the marking calls for warmth, not pathos.