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A sudden silence of the entire ensemble. Abbreviated G.P. One of the most dramatic effects in orchestral music.
Printed as “G.P.” or “G. P.” over a bar of silence in every part, often with a fermata to lengthen it; in a part it warns the player that the rest is shared by the whole ensemble, so nobody fills it. It lasts that bar, or until the conductor releases the fermata; what follows often enters at a new dynamic or tempo.
Abbreviations: G.P., G. P.
The Generalpause creates shock through sudden silence. After loud, active music, a G.P. stops everything — the audience holds its breath. Use it for dramatic surprise, structural articulation, or comic timing. Haydn and Beethoven use G.P. to maximum dramatic effect.
Dvořák, Symphony No. 9 (“From the New World”), third movement (Scherzo), flutes, m. 299: “G. P.” — a bar of silence after the strings fade to ppp pizzicato — before the whole orchestra’s ff in the next bar.
Generalpause is one of 1760 terms in the Gradus musical dictionary: the words, abbreviations and instrument names that appear in printed scores, plus the vocabulary composers use to talk about them.
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