Bedeutend

As Printed on a Score

Never a direction on its own: it intensifies the comparative that follows — bedeutend langsamer, bedeutend ruhiger, bedeutend schneller — and lasts exactly as long as that word does. Mahler sometimes adds a reference tempo in the same place to fix the amount.

How Composers Use It

Bedeutend sits at the strong end of the German scale of degree: etwas (a little), merklich (noticeably), bedeutend (considerably). Use it when the change must be unmistakable — a new section rather than an easing. Because ‘considerably’ is still relative, name a tempo to aim for when the proportion matters, as Mahler does by pointing back to an earlier movement’s tempo.

Example

Mahler, Symphony No. 5, second movement, flutes, m. 266: “Plötzlich wieder bedeutend langsamer.”, beside a note fixing the tempo as that of the first movement’s Trauermarsch.

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