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Clear, bright in tone.
Printed above or below the staff where a line or texture should sound clear; it applies to that passage. It can describe tone (bright, transparent) or articulation (each note distinct), and context decides which.
Use chiaro when the clarity of individual notes or lines matters more than blend — a contrapuntal passage, a melody inside a thick texture. It is rare in older music; twentieth-century English composers such as Warlock use it as a tone direction. In piano music, keep the pedalling light where you write it, or the word contradicts the sound.
Warlock, Peterisms, Set 1, “A Sad Song”, piano, m. 23: “chiaro”, two bars after “ritenuto molto” and a bar before “tenuto.”
Chiaro 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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