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With tenderness.
Printed beside the dynamic, usually p, or joined to other words — con tenerezza ma semplice; Moderato tranquillo e con tenerezza. In bilingual editions it may appear beside German zart. It lasts for the phrase or section and lapses at the next character direction.
Con tenerezza asks for tenderness: a soft, caressing tone, gentle shaping, no hard attacks. It is close to teneramente and dolce, but it names an emotion where dolce names a sound. Bizet’s con tenerezza ma semplice is a useful model: pair tenderness with a restraint word so it does not slide into sentimentality. It suits p and pp and lyrical lines over a quiet accompaniment.
Mahler, Kindertotenlieder, “Wenn dein Mütterlein”, piano, m. 51: “con tenerezza” beside the German “zart”, a bar after the voice is marked “Etwas bewegter”.
Con tenerezza 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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