Sombre

What it means

Düster is a German performance marking and calls for a gloomy, muted expression. Unlike the words for grief and pain, it aims less at a feeling than at a tonal quality: the tone should be dark, the sound veiled, the light missing.

The marking thus concerns above all tone colour. It is achieved through dark tone production, reduced vibrato, covered vowels in singing, and, with strings, through playing near the fingerboard or with a mute.

It differs from beklemmt, which means tightness and oppression, in its breadth: the gloomy can also be spacious. It differs from schwermütig (melancholy) in that no feeling is named but a tonal impression.

In the notation

The word stands above the staff at the beginning of the section concerned and applies until a new marking. Typical neighbours are low register, quiet dynamics, minor harmony, and darkly scored instrument groups. In scores there are often, alongside it, instructions on manner of playing that reinforce the colour.

Musical use

The designation is used in sections that depict a menacing or shadowed mood: in stage music, in songs with a corresponding text, in introductions and middle sections that bring a break. In the music of the nineteenth century it belongs to those German performance words with which composers fix the expression more precisely than with the traditional Italian terms.

The instruction is typical of German scores of the Romantic period and the early twentieth century. It calls for a dark, covered sound, often in a low register and quiet dynamics. Strings play near the fingerboard, winds with a soft attack. Its Italian equivalent is cupo.

Performance practice

Look for the effect in tone colour, not in volume: a dark tone is not necessarily a quiet one. Take back the vibrato and choose a soft, covered attack. Avoid bright peaks in the accents. And keep the colour up over the whole section instead of showing it only at the beginning.