Détaché

As Printed on a Score

Printed above a string part where the bowing changes from slurred to separate strokes, and kept until slurs or another bowing word (lié, spiccato, legato) return. Engravers often write it once and let the absence of slurs carry it on.

Also spelled: detache

How Composers Use It

Détaché means one bow stroke per note, broad and even, the notes not shortened — a bowing, not a staccato. Write it to cancel slurs explicitly, or to ask for energy and clarity in running passages without dots, which players would read as shorter and lighter. Add a bow-position word (à la pointe, au talon) if the character matters; for real separation write martelé or staccato instead.

Example

Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 6 in B minor (“Pathétique”), first movement, first violins, m. 70: “détaché”, a bar after an ff.

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