Stringendo

What it means

Stringendo comes from stringere, “to draw together,” and calls for a becoming faster in which the music, as it were, draws itself together. With the tempo, the tension grows: the passage strives toward a goal, usually a climax or the entry of a new section. Abbreviated it stands as string.

Compared with accelerando, which designates the acceleration neutrally, stringendo has this additional sense of intensification; an increase in volume almost always accompanies it. Incalzando lies close but stresses the pursuing and pressing. Affrettando means haste, animando animation. The boundaries between these words are fluid and not handled uniformly; the musical context decides.

In the notation

The word or abbreviation stands in italics above the staff and applies from this point. A crescendo hairpin is often added. For a longer effect, some editions carry along a dashed line. The intensification is ended by a new tempo marking, by a tempo, or by flowing directly into the goal section.

Musical use

Stringendo stands in intensification passages, developments, and transitions running toward a break, as well as in dramatic sections of the operatic and song literature. Characteristic is that the passage does not stand for itself but leads toward something — the goal is part of the effect. In nineteenth-century music the marking belongs to the fixed stock of means of intensification.

Stringendo is often combined with crescendo. It often leads to a climax, at which a new tempo then applies.

Performance practice

Begin at the existing tempo and only then pull ahead; an immediate jump takes away the intensification's course. Divide the path to the goal and keep something in reserve, so that the last bars can still add more. Connect tempo and sound, otherwise the passage merely seems faster instead of more tense. Take care that the notes keep their duration — shortening makes the passage nervous. And name the goal point together within the ensemble, before you rehearse the passage.