Animando

As Printed on a Score

Printed above the staff where the quickening starts, sometimes with dashes to show its span; it is ended by a tempo word, a tempo, or a ritenuto or rallentando that turns it back. Often qualified: poco animando, un poco animando.

How Composers Use It

The gerund makes it a process — becoming more animated — where animato describes a state you arrive in. Use it for a gradual surge of energy, typically matched by a crescendo, and show where it peaks or stops. Tchaikovsky uses it repeatedly in the Pathétique Symphony; German composers sometimes print it beside a vernacular equivalent so the gradual intensifying is unmistakable.

Example

Mahler, Kindertotenlieder, “Nun seh’ ich wohl, warum so dunkle Flammen”, voice, m. 23: “animando”, printed together with the German “steigernd” two bars after a p.

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