Molto cantabile

As Printed on a Score

Printed beside the dynamic under a melody, often with espress. or arco nearby in string parts, or inside a longer direction (teneramente, molto cantabile, con espansione). It holds for the melody or passage until a new character direction.

How Composers Use It

Molto cantabile asks a line to sing as fully as possible: long-breathed, perfectly connected, every note sustained into the next, shaped the way a singer would shape it. It is especially useful for strings and winds when a melody must carry over a soft accompaniment. Mahler gives it to the first violins in the Fifth Symphony’s scherzo alongside espress.; Tchaikovsky to the Pathétique’s great second theme.

Example

Mahler, Symphony No. 5, third movement, first violins (“Erste Violinen.”), m. 344: “molto cantabile” with “arco” and “espress.” at pp, a bar after “Fliessender, aber immer gemässigt.”

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