Klagend

As Printed on a Score

Printed above the staff as a character word — alone (Klagend.) or within a heading (“Ermattet, klagend”); bilingual editions set lagrimoso or lamentoso beside it. It lasts until another character word.

How Composers Use It

Klagend asks for lament: a singing, mourning line, often with drooping sighs and weight on dissonant appoggiaturas. It can be soft and intimate or, in Mahler, a full-throated orchestral cry. Beethoven’s “Ermattet, klagend” in the Arioso of Op. 110 joins it to physical exhaustion. Choose the dynamic deliberately: the word fixes the emotion, not the volume.

Example

Mahler, Symphony No. 5, first movement, m. 369: “Klagend.” — in the same bar oboes, horns and trombones are told “Schalltrichter auf!” and the trumpets reach fff.

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