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Very slow. The German equivalent of Molto lento or Largo.
Printed above the staff as a heading, often with a metronome mark, or as the German gloss on an Italian word (Adagio. Sehr langsam.); Mahler also folds it into running directions such as a tempo (sehr langsam). It holds until the next tempo word, and noch langsamer or wieder äusserst langsam adjust it further.
Mahler and Bruckner use Sehr langsam for their most inward, transcendent moments. The German phrasing tends to invoke a more spiritual or philosophical slowness than the Italian equivalent.
Bruckner's Symphony No. 7, second movement (Sehr feierlich und sehr langsam) — the great Adagio, written as an elegy for Wagner.
Sehr langsam is one of 1760 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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