Definition of smorzando in English:
smorzando
adjective & adverb smɔːˈtsandəʊ
Music (especially as a direction) dying away.
Example sentencesExamples
- Now amidst forte and breathless speed the music whirls furiously in a wash of G-minor arpeggios until calando and smorzando signal the performer to slow, to ebb and finally to ritenuto to the sublime second theme of the Ballade.
- The work begins with the first pianist, marked Rapid, playing a rather Skryabinesque six-note figure ppp and smorzando, with the instruction ` Continue quite independently of the beat of the second Piano part ’, the only example that springs to mind of an aleatoric effect in Bax's music.
- After a violent piano interlude and a brief return to the first tempo, the next section (‘Beneath the skin and kept apart… ") is marked ‘Vivo e smorzando" and has the low sustained G#3 requiring some mezzoforte to forte volume - but also with some alternate notes if the singer does not have the volume that low.
- Only from bar 72 with the transition into the coda can you ease up slightly on the tempo, with a marked smorzando in bar 75 and a poco rallentando in bar 80.
Origin
Italian, literally 'extinguishing'.
Definition of smorzando in US English:
smorzando
adverb & adjectivesmôrtˈsändō
Music (especially as a direction) dying away.
Example sentencesExamples
- After a violent piano interlude and a brief return to the first tempo, the next section (‘Beneath the skin and kept apart… ") is marked ‘Vivo e smorzando" and has the low sustained G#3 requiring some mezzoforte to forte volume - but also with some alternate notes if the singer does not have the volume that low.
- Only from bar 72 with the transition into the coda can you ease up slightly on the tempo, with a marked smorzando in bar 75 and a poco rallentando in bar 80.
- The work begins with the first pianist, marked Rapid, playing a rather Skryabinesque six-note figure ppp and smorzando, with the instruction ` Continue quite independently of the beat of the second Piano part ’, the only example that springs to mind of an aleatoric effect in Bax's music.
- Now amidst forte and breathless speed the music whirls furiously in a wash of G-minor arpeggios until calando and smorzando signal the performer to slow, to ebb and finally to ritenuto to the sublime second theme of the Ballade.
Origin
Italian, literally ‘extinguishing’.