Ossia

What it means

Ossia means “or else” and designates a second, equally offered version of a passage. The player chooses between the two. The reasons for such an offering vary: the alternative can be technically easier, it can follow a different source reading, it can provide a version for an instrument with a different range, or it can show an ornamented variant.

In the notation

The alternative version stands in a smaller additional staff immediately above the passage concerned, usually with the word ossia in front of it; it comprises only the bars that differ. Occasionally it appears instead as a footnote or in an appendix. Whether the alternative comes from the composer or was added by the editor is not always recognizable from the notation — urtext editions mark the origin, older practical editions often do not. Technical simplifications are, as a rule, additions by the editor.

Musical use

In the piano and string literature of the nineteenth century, such offerings are frequent, especially at passages with large stretches, extreme registers, or octave passages. In vocal parts they offer lower or higher variants, so that a part remains accessible for different voice types. In editions of early music they occasionally show ornamented versions, such as the performance practice of the time suggests.

The ossia version is to be distinguished from a mere variant in the sense of a reading: the latter concerns the question of what stands in the text, the former the question of what is played.

Ossia passages are usually notated in smaller engraving above the staff.

Performance practice

Decide deliberately and once for one of the two versions, instead of wavering between them — the hand learns one sequence of movement, not two. Check first whether the alternative is really easier: often it is merely different and demands a change of movement. And read, if possible, in the preface where it comes from; a version offered by the composer themselves carries a different weight than an easing added by the editor.