Senza crescendo

As Printed on a Score

Printed below the staff as senza cresc., where the music might seem to invite a swell — a rising line, an accumulating texture. It stays in force for that passage, until a cresc. or new dynamic is printed.

Abbreviations: senza cresc.

How Composers Use It

A pre-emptive instruction: write it where the shape of the music would make any musician grow louder and you want the tension held flat instead. Rising lines kept at one level sound restrained, sometimes eerie. It is clearer than repeating p, because it names the temptation being refused.

Example

Beach, Symphony in E minor (“Gaelic”), Op. 32, second movement, first violins, m. 175: “senza cresc.” in a divided passage begun at ppp, followed by “unis.” in the next bar.

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