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In the tempo and manner of a mazurka.
Printed above the staff as a heading, either over a mazurka itself or where a mazurka-like section begins inside a larger piece; it lasts until the next tempo word.
It asks for the gait of the Polish mazurka: triple metre with stress often shifted to the second or third beat, dotted figures and a slightly elastic pulse. The tempo can range from melancholy to brisk, so the rhythm you write does most of the work; the heading tells performers to bring the dance’s accentuation and lilt. Chopin’s mazurkas are the reference point most players will have in mind.
Tempo di mazurka is one of 1755 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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