Immer

As Printed on a Score

Printed in front of what it governs: immer leiser, immer langsamer, immer mit Pedal. With a comparative it describes a continuing process that runs until a new instruction stops it; with a manner (immer gebunden, immer staccato) it means “throughout” and stays in force until contradicted. Mahler sometimes prints “immer” as a separate word just ahead of the rest of the direction.

How Composers Use It

It does two jobs, exactly like sempre: “keep doing this” (immer staccato) and “more and more” (immer schneller, immer leiser). The second needs an endpoint — a new tempo word, a dynamic, or a fermata — so the player knows where the process stops. Immer noch (“still”) is a useful reminder that an earlier condition, such as mutes, continues across a page turn.

Example

Wolf, Mörike-Lieder, “Auf einer Wanderung”, piano, m. 46: “immer langsamer”, with the dynamics falling from p to pp in the same bars; the song opens “Leicht bewegt”.

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