Fortississimo

What it means

Fortississimo, notated as fff, designates the outermost level of the loud side as it is usually prescribed. It lies above fortissimo and in most works marks the upper limit.

The formation follows no strict logic of language: the number of letters stands for the degree, not for a grammatically correct intensification. Accordingly, in the music of the late nineteenth and the twentieth century ffff and more are also found — such markings say less about a measurable volume than about the fact that the utmost is meant here.

Like all dynamic markings, this one too is relative. In a work that uses the scale only between piano and forte, fff would be inappropriate; where it occurs, it belongs to a widely spanned dynamic space.

In the notation

The sign fff stands below the staff, in vocal parts above the text, and applies until the next marking. It often appears at the goal of a long crescendo or at the peak of a tutti section. With subito it demands a sudden change from a quieter surrounding.

Musical use

The marking belongs to the orchestral music of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in which large scorings open up a correspondingly large dynamic space. It stands at climaxes, in closing sections, and where a sonority is to seem overwhelming. In chamber-music scoring it is rare, because the available span is smaller.

It appears especially in the late Romantic period. Tchaikovsky and Mahler use it for extreme climaxes. It is notated as fff.

Performance practice

Check where in the piece the actually loudest place lies, and orient everything else on it. Seek the effect through fullness of sound and sonority, not through expenditure of force: beyond a certain limit the tone does not become louder but only harder. Watch the carrying power in the room — a distorted tone colour harms more than additional volume helps. And keep the tempo stable, for at the greatest volume it easily speeds up.