Squillante

What it means

Squillante means “blaring, brightly sounding” and calls for a radiant, penetrating sound. The word goes back to squillare, “to blare, to ring out brightly,” and is connected above all with the sound of trumpets and other brass instruments.

What is meant is a tone with much brilliance and pronounced overtones that rises above the overall sound. The marking concerns above all tone colour but is usually combined with powerful dynamics.

Squillante differs from schneidend, which means sharpness and hardness, through its brilliance: blaring is bright and radiant, cutting rather hard. It differs from brillant, which designates virtuoso brilliance, in that it means the sound itself, not the execution of figures.

In the notation

The word stands in italics above the staff, usually in brass parts, and applies until a new marking. It is often found together with fanfare motifs, accents, and powerful dynamics. With horns it can coincide with the instruction for a blaring tone, notated with its own signs.

Musical use

The marking is used in festive sections, in fanfares, at climaxes, and everywhere a voice is to outshine the overall sound. In the orchestral music of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries it stands over trumpet and trombone passages, occasionally also in woodwind or string parts that are to imitate a corresponding sound.

With trumpets, the marking means an open, radiant tone. With cymbals, squillante instead designates a distinct playing technique: rather than clashing them together, a single cymbal is suspended and struck with sticks, producing a bright, metallic ring rather than a crash.

Performance practice

Look for the brilliance in the embouchure and in the air flow, not in pressing — a pressed tone sounds narrow, not radiant. Keep the intonation exact, for bright, loud notes make deviations immediately audible. Watch for a clear tonguing. And keep the balance in view: outshining does not mean drowning out where other voices are meant to carry.