Gradatim

What it means

Gradatim comes from Latin and means “stepwise, by degrees.” As an instruction it asks that a change be made not all at once but in steps — with volume, with tempo, or with registration.

The marking is rare and is met above all in older sources and in the organ literature, where stepwise procedure corresponds to the construction of the instrument: there the volume is changed by adding stops, that is, necessarily in steps.

Related is the Italian poco a poco, “little by little,” which however rather means a gliding course. The difference is the same as between terraced dynamics and flowing dynamics: once steps, once transition.

In the notation

The word stands above the staff at the point from which it applies. Often it is added to another instruction and specifies its course. In organ music it appears in registration instructions, occasionally together with indications of which stops are to be added when.

Musical use

The marking is used where an intensification is to be built up in recognizable steps: in organ works, in movements with a terraced build-up of sound, in sections in which voices join in one after another. The effect differs audibly from a gliding crescendo — every step is perceptible as such.

The Latin word means stepwise and designates a gradual change, for instance in tempo or volume. It corresponds to the Italian poco a poco and stands in older music and textbooks. Sudden jumps are to be avoided so that the course really seems stepless. The word is found in Latin theoretical treatises, where it also designates stepwise melodic motion.

Performance practice

Fix the steps beforehand: how many, where they lie, how large the distance is. Hold each step until the next comes, and avoid unconscious transitions in between. Divide the stretch so that the last step still allows an intensification. And, in the ensemble, take care that everyone chooses the same places for the change.