With feeling
With heartfelt intensity.
What it means
Empfindungsvoll is a German performance marking and calls for a feeling, intense performance. It corresponds to the Italian espressivo or affettuoso and belongs to those words with which German-speaking composers since the eighteenth century fix the expression in their own language.
The term is connected with Empfindsamkeit (sensibility), a current of the music of the middle of the eighteenth century that aimed at the direct expression of personal feelings. In this music moods change rapidly, and rests and surprising turns belong to the style.
It differs from leidenschaftlich (passionate), which means great agitation, through its inwardness: what is meant is an engaged, not an agitated performance.
In the notation
The word stands above the staff at the beginning of a movement or section, in German-language editions in place of an Italian marking. It can become part of the movement's name. It is often found over movements with richly articulated melody, suspensions, and fine dynamic markings.
Musical use
The designation is used in slow movements and in pieces with a personal tone, especially in piano music and in song. It is widespread in the music of Empfindsamkeit and the early Romantic period. It seldom stands over dance movements or finales, because their character stands opposed to the expression meant.
The German instruction corresponds to the Italian con espressione or espressivo and stands above all in music of Empfindsamkeit and the Romantic period, for instance in Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Beethoven, and Schumann. It demands a personal, heartfelt expression in which dynamics, agogics, and tone colour are finely graded.
Performance practice
Shape through the line and through fine dynamic gradations; large gestures contradict inwardness. Give suspensions and dissonances weight and let the resolutions yield. Take time at phrase boundaries without giving up the pulse. And take care that the expression comes from the notation — the instruction tells you how to read, not what to add.