Dolente

As Printed on a Score

Printed beside the dynamic, attached to a heading — Arioso dolente — or inside a longer running direction. It colours the passage until a new character or tempo direction; nothing formally cancels it.

How Composers Use It

Dolente asks for a plaintive, grieving tone — sorrow felt rather than proclaimed. It is nearly synonymous with doloroso; dolente leans toward the plaintive, doloroso toward pain. Beethoven’s Arioso dolente in Op. 110, glossed in German as Klagender Gesang (“lamenting song”), is the classic instance: a sung lament for the piano. As a qualifier it combines well with a tempo or form word.

Example

Beethoven, Piano Sonata No. 31 in A-flat major, Op. 110, third movement, m. 12: “Arioso dolente”, two bars after “Adagio ma non troppo” — the slow movement that leads into the fourth-movement fugue.

Related Terms