Kurz

As Printed on a Score

Written over or under the note it shortens, or over a fermata or rest to ask for only a brief hold; “sehr kurz” and “immer kurz” extend it to a passage. It also turns up inside longer notes, as in Mahler’s “Vorschläge so kurz als möglich” (grace notes as short as possible). It lasts for its note or passage, ended by gebunden, lang or another articulation word.

How Composers Use It

Use kurz when dots alone would be read too politely — Bruckner and Mahler print it often — to clip a note that looks held, or to make a fermata no more than a breath. Say what is short — a note, a pause, a grace note. For strings, name the stroke if it matters (kurz gestrichen, spiccato). Writing the shorter note value followed by a rest is often clearer still.

Example

Mahler, Symphony No. 5, second movement, cellos, m. 191: “kurz.” beside “klagend”, at pp, two bars after “zögernd”; another “kurz.” follows at m. 193.

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