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Speeding up little by little.
Printed above the staff where the acceleration begins, sometimes alongside an Italian equivalent (accel. poco a poco) in the same edition; dashes may follow to show its span. It continues until a new tempo marking states where the speeding up ends.
The English counterpart of poco a poco accelerando: a gradual, continuous increase rather than a sudden change. Delius pairs it with a crescendo, so that speed and volume rise together. Say where the acceleration arrives — a new tempo word or a metronome mark — since a gradual change without a goal leaves performers guessing.
Delius, Four Old English Lyrics, “To Daffodils”, voice, m. 23: “becoming gradually quicker”, with “cresc. ed accel. poco a poco” in the same bar; the song opens “Slow”.
Becoming gradually quicker is one of 1755 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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