Triste et monotone

FrenchExpressionPrinted in scores

Sad and monotonous.

As Printed on a Score

Printed over the voice or above the staff, usually at the start of a song or phrase. It describes manner for the passage until another marking replaces it.

How Composers Use It

Two instructions joined: triste for sadness, monotone for an even, unvaried delivery — little rise and fall in dynamics, a steady rhythm, as if grief had become routine. Debussy sets it in a song whose text compares weeping to rain falling on a town. It is a deliberate restriction of expression, so vary the delivery only where you mark a change.

Example

Debussy, Ariettes oubliées, “Il pleure dans mon cœur”, voice, m. 4: “triste et monotone”, at p.

Triste et monotone 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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