Agogics

What it means

Agogics denotes the small tempo changes with which a performance is shaped: the slight stretching of a target note, the barely perceptible pressing in an intensification, the yielding at the end of a phrase. What is meant are deviations from the strict pulse so slight that they are perceived not as changes of tempo but as liveliness.

Hugo Riemann introduced the term into music theory in 1884 with his treatise Musikalische Dynamik und Agogik, as a counterpart to dynamics: the latter concerns the gradation of loudness, agogics that of time.

There is an overlap with tempo rubato. Rubato means an expressly free shaping, frequently with larger deviations; agogics is the umbrella term for all temporal subtleties, including the inconspicuous ones that belong to every living performance.

In the notation

Agogics is as a rule not notated. It belongs to what the performer brings to the music. Notated markings such as ritardando, accelerando or tenuto denote larger or targeted deviations; the fine ones in between arise from the phrasing, the harmony and the texture.

Musical use

Every living performance works with agogic means, even in music that seems strict in time. Dissonances, the high points of a line and changes of harmony call for minimal delays so that they become audible. How far such freedoms may go depends on the style: in dance-like music the latitude is small, in Romantic piano music large.

Performance practice

Use agogic means in a targeted way and not continuously; a performance that stretches constantly loses its pulse. Take and give in balance, so that the basic tempo is preserved. Orient yourself by the harmony: where a tension arises, there may be time. And take yourself back to the metronome now and then when practising, as a check to see whether shaping has imperceptibly become dragging.