Rallentando

A rallentando is a change of tempo. It slows the pulse not at a stroke but step by step. At the end of phrases, sections or pieces it announces the close: like a train slowly pulling into the station, the music takes the speed out. The abbreviation “rall.” is written above the staff, usually at the point from which the tempo is to slacken.

How far, how long?

The marking names neither the duration of the rallentando nor its strength. That is a matter of interpretation. Hints are given by additions such as “poco” (a little) or “molto” (a lot), sometimes a dashed line above the staff that shows how long it is to last. When the rallentando ends, “a tempo” or “tempo primo” usually appears at that point. The Fauré song below shows a short example of this.

Rallentando or ritardando?

In practice the two terms are almost interchangeable: both slow down gradually. “Rallentando” is sometimes associated a little more strongly with “slackening”, “ritardando” with “delaying”. A ritenuto, by contrast, means an immediate holding back. Because “rit.” can stand for both terms, the context decides how the passage is to be played.

Examples from the sheet music archive

The two pieces below show the marking at two different places: in the middle of a song, with a following “a Tempo”, and at the end of a piano piece before the fermata.

Voice and piano

• Les matelots Gabriel Fauré, op. 2 No. 2, voice and piano · 3 pages

  On page 1, in bar 17, there is “poco rall.”, in the following bar “a Tempo”. The passage shows how a rallentando prepares the end of a section and is then cancelled.

Piano four hands

• Melodisches Übungsstück Nr. 9 Anton Diabelli, op. 149 No. 9, piano four hands · 2 pages

  The piece is in 6/8 with the marking “Allegretto”. In the last bars “rall.” is marked in the secondo (page 1) and in the primo (page 2), together with pp and a fermata on the final chord.