Peu à peu

As Printed on a Score

Attached to a gradual direction — ralentir peu à peu, en pressant peu à peu, animez peu à peu, peu à peu cresc. — and printed where the process begins, sometimes followed by dashes showing how far it runs. The change goes on until a new tempo or dynamic marking arrives (a tempo, au Mouvt, a new dynamic).

Also spelled: peu a peu

How Composers Use It

The French poco a poco: it turns a direction into a process and asks the performer to pace it. Debussy uses it to bind several changes into one gesture, a crescendo and an acceleration growing together. Give the process a destination — dashes, a hairpin, or the marking that ends it — so the player knows how much to save. Added to a verb that is already gradual (en animant), it stresses how slowly the change should come.

Example

Debussy, Clair de lune (Suite bergamasque), piano, m. 19: “peu à peu cresc. et animé”, four bars after “Tempo rubato”; “Un poco mosso” follows at m. 27.

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