Delicato

As Printed on a Score

Printed beside the dynamic, usually p or softer, over light figuration or a fragile melodic line; it may be intensified a bar or two later to delicatissimo. It colours the passage until the next character direction.

How Composers Use It

Delicato asks for a light, refined touch: soft edges, clear but gentle articulation, nothing heavy. It describes quality of sound rather than level, so it accompanies p or pp rather than replacing them. Chopin writes delicato and then delicatissimo as the music fades toward the close of his C-sharp minor Nocturne — a model for using the two as a gradation rather than as synonyms.

Example

Chopin, Nocturne No. 20 in C-sharp minor (“Lento con gran espressione”), piano, m. 60: “delicato”, a bar after “sempre più piano”, followed at m. 61 by “delicatissimo”.

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