Ritmo di due battute

As Printed on a Score

Printed above the staff at the bar where the music begins to group bars in pairs, and in force until another grouping instruction or the end of the passage. It alters neither tempo nor time signature; performers feel each bar as one beat of a two-beat unit.

Also spelled: ritmo di 2 battute

How Composers Use It

A rarer sibling of the three-bar marking, useful when a fast passage contracts its phrases into two-bar units, often as tension builds toward a climax. Use it only when the pairing is a real change of grouping after some other pattern; constant two-bar phrasing needs no label.

Example

Beach, Symphony in E minor (“Gaelic”), Op. 32, fourth movement, flute 1, m. 507: “Ritmo di due battute.”, following “Ritmo di tre battute.” at m. 483, with poco a poco accel. two bars later.

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