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Upbeat or anacrusis — one or more notes before the first full bar, leading into the downbeat.
The Auftakt creates momentum leading into the first strong beat. Many of the greatest melodies begin with an upbeat — it creates a sense of arrival on the downbeat. When conducting, the Auftakt determines the character of what follows: a gentle upbeat leads to a lyrical phrase; a sharp upbeat to an energetic one.
Beethoven, Symphony No. 5, opening: the three short notes are heard as an Auftakt to the held note, yet Beethoven writes them after an eighth rest on the downbeat, inside the first bar — the silent beat is part of the gesture.
Auftakt 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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