A battuta

As Printed on a Score

Printed above the staff at the end of a recitative, cadenza or a piacere passage, marking the return to a regular, conducted beat; it stays in force from that point on. In vocal scores it tells the accompanist and conductor that the singer is no longer leading the time.

How Composers Use It

A battuta (“by the beat”) says “back in time” after recitative, colla voce or a cadenza, and belongs especially to vocal and operatic writing. It overlaps with a tempo but stresses metrical strictness rather than a return to an earlier speed; the music after it may in fact be in a new tempo. Use it after any passage in which an accompanist follows a soloist, so the ensemble knows exactly where collective time resumes.

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