Con slancio

As Printed on a Score

Printed beside the dynamic or at the start of a rising, surging phrase, often with cresc. or an accent. Older scores spell it con islancio, with the prothetic i Italian once added after a consonant. It colours the phrase it launches and lapses when the phrase lands.

Also spelled: slancio, Con islancio

How Composers Use It

Con slancio asks for élan: an eager, upward-flinging impulse, as if the phrase were launched. It suits a soaring melodic leap or an impulsive restart, and implies a slight forward push without a formal tempo change. Mark it at the start of the gesture rather than across a whole section, and let dynamics and phrasing do the rest; if you want the tempo to move, write that too.

Example

Bizet, “J’aime l’amour” (from the opéra comique Djamileh), voice, m. 62: “con islancio” — the older spelling of the same phrase.

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