Très effacé

As Printed on a Score

Printed over the passage that should all but disappear, usually at pp and often with other instructions in the same bar (arpégez lentement, m.d.). It lasts until a stronger colour word or an en dehors returns.

Also spelled: tres efface

How Composers Use It

Très effacé pushes effacé to its limit: the sound should seem barely there, a trace or memory of an idea. Lili Boulanger pairs it with slowly rolled piano chords that should hover. Give the player a reason for the retreat — another line in the foreground, or an ending — and add the dynamic you mean, since the word asks for a degree of presence, not a number of decibels.

Example

Boulanger, Clairières dans le ciel, “Les lilas qui avaient fleuri”, piano, m. 43: “très effacé”, with “arpégez lentement” in the same bar.

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