Attacca

What it means

Attacca, Italian for "it attacks" or "it begins," is a performance instruction requiring the performer to move directly into the next movement or section of a work without any pause. It cancels the brief break that would normally occur between movements of a multi-movement work.

The reinforced form attacca subito, "attack immediately," demands the transition even more emphatically, and the more specific attacca il [movement name] names the following section directly.

In the notation

The instruction appears at the end of a movement, usually below the last staff system or directly above the following barline, replacing the fermata or rest that might otherwise separate the movements.

Musical use

Attacca appears above all where composers want to emphasize the formal or expressive unity of a multi-movement work, for instance when a slow movement flows directly into an energetic finale, or when a musical motif continues across the movement boundary. Beethoven repeatedly used the instruction to link movements of his symphonies and piano sonatas.

Attacca is distinguished from the mere absence of a fermata at the end of a movement, which does not by itself constitute an explicit instruction for an immediate transition, and from the instruction "senza pausa," used in the same sense but appearing less often.

Performance practice

When facing an attacca transition, prepare for having no time to tune, turn pages, or take a long breath; plan such actions during the final measures of the preceding movement. In an ensemble, agree in advance on the entrance after the attacca so the transition does not falter from uncertainty.