Slargando

As Printed on a Score

Printed above the staff (in songs often over the voice part), in full or as slarg., sometimes with dashes; a tempo or Tempo I ends it, often only a bar or two later. It frequently coincides with the high point of a phrase.

Abbreviations: slarg.

How Composers Use It

Slargando is a less common synonym of allargando: broaden, with fuller tone and slower pace together, rather than simply slow down. It turns up in 19th-century French and Italian song (Bizet, Chaminade) at the climax of a phrase, just before the music returns to tempo. Use allargando if you want the most widely understood word; slargando gives the same instruction with an older, Italianate colour.

Example

Bizet, “Rêve de la bien-aimée” (20 Mélodies, Op. 21), voice, m. 57: “slargando” after an ff in the previous bar, with “suivez” in the piano and “Tempo I” in the next bar.

Related Terms