General pause
Rest of all parts, symbol G.P.
What it means
The general pause is the silence in which all those involved fall silent at the same time. Unlike the break of a caesura, it has a measured value: it stands as a rest in the bar and is counted along, the tempo continues. Its effect rests on the fact that it occurs at a place where the ear counts on continuation — the music stops, but it is not over.
In the notation
In the score the corresponding rest appears in all staves, in addition usually the abbreviation G.P. above the top staff. In individual parts the note is especially important, because the player otherwise cannot tell whether only their own part is silent or the whole ensemble. A fermata can stand over the rest, stretching it beyond the written value; then the order of counting no longer holds for the duration of the fermata. The general pause is therefore to be distinguished from the caesura, which has no value and interrupts the flow, and from the breath mark, which concerns only a single part.
Musical use
The general pause is used where a break is intended: before the re-entry of a theme, before a surprising change of key or character, occasionally immediately before the ending. The denser the texture was before, the more strongly it acts. In music since the Viennese Classical period it belongs to the familiar means of dramatic shaping; in dense polyphonic music, by contrast, it hardly occurs, because there the continuous flow of voices carries the form.
Performance practice
Count the general pause through actively instead of waiting on feeling or the neighbour — silence distorts the perception of time, and it seems longer while playing than it is. Keep the tension: movements, page-turning noise, and audible breathing destroy the impression. End the sound before it together and exactly; a general pause begins with a clean ending. And practise the entry afterwards separately, for it is precisely there that ensembles come apart.