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Earnest, serious.
Printed above the staff as a heading word, often after a tempo word, or over a passage whose mood darkens. It holds until another character word.
Ernst asks for seriousness: weight of thought rather than weight of sound — a steady tempo, sober phrasing, no sentimentality or display. Brahms titled his last songs Vier ernste Gesänge, and the word carries that gravity. It is close in mood to serioso. Use it where performers might otherwise sweeten the line, and add a dynamic, since serious music can be quiet or loud.
Ernst 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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