Quasi
“Almost, like”, often introducing a comparison.
What it means
Quasi means “almost, as it were, like” and introduces a comparison. The marking calls for a passage to be played as if it were something else — quasi una fantasia, for instance, “as it were like a fantasy,” quasi recitativo “like a recitative,” quasi niente “almost nothing.”
The word never stands alone but connects with a term naming the model. It also weakens this term at the same time: what is meant is not that the passage is a recitative but that it should take on its character.
This double function — comparison and qualification — distinguishes quasi from other additions. Poco only weakens, come (“like”) only compares; quasi does both.
In the notation
The word stands in italics before the term it refers to, above or below the staff depending on the kind of instruction. It applies to the section marked. In the titles of works it appears as a pointer to a genre whose freedoms the piece takes without fully belonging to it.
Musical use
The word is used to transfer characters: an instrumental part is to speak like a singing voice, a piano to sound like a harp, a section to seem as free as an improvisation. In the music of the nineteenth century the phrase is frequent, because composers deliberately blur the boundaries between genres and forms of expression.
Quasi weakens a marking into a comparison, for instance quasi una fantasia for “like a fantasy,” known from Beethoven's sonatas op. 27. Quasi recitativo means recitative-like, quasi niente almost nothing. The instruction calls for suggesting the character without fully realizing it. The instruction always stands before the term of comparison.
Performance practice
Ask what constitutes the named model, and transfer its properties: a quasi recitativo demands speech-like freedom and closeness to the text, a quasi niente the utmost restraint. At the same time, take care that the word qualifies — the passage remains what it is. And check in context how far the comparison is meant to reach.