Roh

As Printed on a Score

Printed over a part, usually lower-case with an exclamation mark (“roh!”), at a loud, accented passage — sometimes given to one section while the others play normally. It colours that passage until another character word follows.

How Composers Use It

Raw, coarse: deliberately unrefined sound — heavy bow pressure, hard attacks, no polish. Mahler uses it to strip the beauty from a passage that should sound rustic or brutal. It works only as a contrast: keep it short, surround it with refined writing, and mark the dynamics and accents that produce the roughness.

Example

Mahler, Symphony No. 5, third movement (Scherzo), cellos, m. 448: “roh!” at ff with an sf, after fff in the bar before.

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