Morendo

What it means

Morendo comes from morire, “to die,” and calls for a dying away of the sound: the music becomes softer and slower at once, until it dissolves. Both dimensions belong together here — herein the marking differs from a mere decrescendo, which concerns only the volume, and from a rallentando, which means only the tempo.

Closely related are smorzando (“extinguishing”), calando (“fading”), and perdendosi (“losing itself”). There is no binding difference between them; where a distinction is made at all, calando counts as the most neutral word, while morendo and smorzando are more strongly coloured and perdendosi stresses that the sound, as it were, loses itself.

The goal is usually the edge of audibility, similar to al niente.

In the notation

The word stands in italics above or below the staff, often together with a decrescendo hairpin, and applies until the end of the section. A continuation line can show the effect over several bars. Because a morendo stands almost always at an ending, a marking that ends it rarely follows.

Musical use

The marking stands at the end of movements, songs, and whole works that are to fade rather than conclude. In the piano and song literature of the nineteenth century it is widespread, often in connection with texts about passing away or falling asleep. In orchestral music, too, it serves to take a sound back into silence, often with instruments additionally dropping out.

Morendo often stands at the end of a movement. It calls for volume and tempo to decrease together, until the music dies away.

Performance practice

Combine both processes and pace them over the whole stretch; whoever only becomes softer does not achieve the effect. Keep reserve for the last notes, so that the ending is not already reached beforehand. Take care that the tone carries to the last and the intonation stays stable. And let the last sound end, instead of cutting it off — an audible ending contradicts the sense of the instruction.