Loading…
Loading…
Broadening — getting slower and usually louder simultaneously.
Printed above the staff as allarg. or allargando, usually approaching a climax and often with a crescendo or f; molto allargando and poco allargando grade it. It lasts until a tempo or a new tempo word; if none follows, the broadened tempo continues to the end.
Abbreviations: allarg., allarg
Allargando means the music grows both slower and grander. Use it for triumphant arrivals, majestic codas, or moments where the music should feel like it is expanding in all dimensions. It is the opposite of stringendo.
Elgar, “The Torch”, Op. 60 No. 1, voice, m. 13: “allargando” with a cresc. to f, two bars after a pp “molto cantabile” — slower and fuller at once.
Allargando 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.
Browse the full dictionary →