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Bold, cheeky.
Printed above the staff as a song or movement heading, alone or joined (“Keck und etwas gemessen”), or over a single part at an entrance. In orchestral scores it often marks one instrument’s bold solo; it lasts for that passage or until another character word.
Keck means bold with a grin: crisp, cocky attacks, a little swagger, nothing timid or sentimental. It suits solo entrances, folk-like tunes and scherzo gestures, and Schumann, Wolf and Mahler all use it. Because it describes attitude, not tempo or loudness, give it a dynamic; pair it with a measured tempo word when the boldness should not turn into haste.
Mahler, Symphony No. 5, third movement (Scherzo), Corno obligato in F., m. 15: “keck” at f; the first violins get the same word, with “arco”, in that bar.
Keck 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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