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Almost plucked: in string parts, a bowed stroke as short and dry as pizzicato; in keyboard parts, a crisp, dry touch imitating plucked strings.
Printed above the staff as quasi pizz. or quasi pizzicato — over a string part to be bowed very short, or over a piano line imitating plucked strings, sometimes as staccato (quasi pizzicato). It holds for the passage until another articulation word.
Abbreviations: quasi pizz.
On strings it asks for a dry, very short bowed stroke, often off the string, so the effect resembles plucking while the bow stays ready. In piano writing it is an orchestral image: Mahler marks the opening of a Kindertotenlieder song this way in its piano version, and Liszt uses it for a Paganini variation. Keep the dynamic soft or moderate; the effect loses its character when forced.
Mahler, Kindertotenlieder, “Wenn dein Mütterlein”, piano, m. 1: “quasi pizz.” at pp.
Quasi pizzicato 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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