Perdendosi

Losing oneself

Perdendosi is the gerund of “perdersi”, “to lose oneself”. What is meant is that the sound loses itself like a call in the distance: softer and softer until nothing more is heard. Unlike a mere diminuendo the goal is not a particular level but the fading itself. Perdendosi therefore appears above all at endings, but also at the end of sections that pass into silence.

Perdendosi, smorzando, morendo

All three words describe a dying out. Smorzando stresses the “damping” of the sound, morendo the “dying” and often a slowing down. Perdendosi has the idea of “losing oneself”: the music goes away, as it were, without anything abruptly cutting it off. The differences are fine. For performance what matters most is that the fading happens calmly and evenly.

Performance

Perdendosi demands control. The tone must not break off suddenly, and there must be no “dent” in which the loudness jumps in between. Strings carry the bow on, singers carry the breath to the end, pianists let the last note ring out and release the pedal late.

Common mistakes

• Cutting off the last note: Perdendosi means letting it ring out.
• Getting soft too early: The losing needs time; it begins only at the marked place.
• Reading perdendosi as a tempo mark: It concerns first the sound.