Brillante

As Printed on a Score

Printed above or beside the staff, often alongside the tempo word at the start of a piece or section (Vivace … brillante), and in titles and headings such as Allegro brillante or Rondo brillante. It sets a manner for the passage and is not cancelled by any particular word.

How Composers Use It

Brillante asks for a bright, sparkling sound and a virtuoso’s confidence: clean, even passagework, crisp articulation and enough projection to glitter. It describes surface and manner more than emotion, which is why it belongs to the étude and the showpiece — Weber’s Rondo brillante, Chopin’s Grande Polonaise brillante. Use it where the figuration is the point; on a slow cantabile line it has nothing to act on.

Example

Chopin, Études, Op. 10 No. 5 in G-flat major, piano, m. 1: “brillante” alongside the tempo word “Vivace”, at f.

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