Sehr

As Printed on a Score

Stands before the word it intensifies — Sehr langsam, sehr leise, sehr zurückhaltend — inside a heading or a running direction, and lasts as long as that word does. It is capitalised only at the head of a movement, song or section. Occasionally a line break separates it from its word, so read on to the next printed word before acting on it.

How Composers Use It

The German counterpart of molto, and just as easy to overuse: a score in which every heading begins Sehr loses the gradations between them. It earns its place at the extremes — Sehr langsam for a true Adagio, sehr leise for a soft dynamic the player must protect — and on words of character (sehr innig, sehr zart). One further qualifier is usually the limit before a heading stops being readable at a glance.

Example

Schumann, Liederkreis, Op. 39, No. 4, “Die Stille”: the song is headed “Nicht schnell, immer sehr leise”, so sehr fixes a dynamic for the whole song, not only a tempo.

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