Calando

What it means

Calando goes back to calare, “to sink, to subside,” and calls for a decrease in two respects: the music becomes both softer and slower. In this it differs from the purely dynamic and the purely temporal directions. A decrescendo concerns only the volume, a rallentando only the tempo; calando combines both.

In the word family of subsiding it stands beside morendo (“dying away”) and smorzando (“fading out”), which likewise combine both dimensions. The differences are slight and are not handled uniformly. Where a distinction is made at all, calando counts as the more neutral word for a drawing back, morendo and smorzando as the more strongly coloured expressions for a dying out to the threshold of hearing. Perdendosi additionally stresses that the sound, as it were, loses itself.

In the notation

The word is written in italics above the staff, often supplemented by a decrescendo hairpin, and applies until the end of the section or until a new marking. If it extends over several bars, some editions add a dashed line. Where playing continues after a calando, an explicit marking such as a tempo must restore the tempo.

Musical use

Calando stands almost always at the end: at the close of a movement, before a general pause, at the transition into a calmer section. The music withdraws without breaking off. In the piano and song literature of the nineteenth century the marking is frequent and serves to fade out an ending instead of setting it.

Performance practice

Distribute both processes evenly over the stretch and decide beforehand where you arrive — otherwise you are quiet too early and have to stretch the last notes artificially. Take care that the tone carries even when soft; a calando that ends in toneless silence sounds like a break-off. In an ensemble, coordination matters more than the accuracy of the individual: whoever gets quieter faster than the others shifts the sound picture. And keep an eye on intonation, for it suffers first when you hold back.