Gehalten

As Printed on a Score

Printed above the staff as a tempo word, often followed by a metronome mark or qualified (“etwas gehalten”), marking a held-back pace that lasts until the next tempo word or a tempo. Over a single note or chord it can instead mean hold it full length; context decides.

How Composers Use It

Gehalten asks the music to hold itself back: a broader, restrained tempo with sustained tone, rather than a ritardando that keeps slowing. Webern and Mahler use it for brief settled passages inside a moving tempo, often with a metronome mark that fixes the amount. If you mean a note’s length, tenuto or a fermata is clearer; for a gradual slowing, use zurückhaltend or rit.

Example

Webern, Fünf Lieder nach Gedichten von Stefan George, Op. 4, “Noch zwingt mich Treue”, voice, m. 18: “gehalten” with a metronome mark of about 52, in a song that opens “Bewegt” at about 72.

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