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Tumultuous, turbulent.
Printed above the staff, usually combined with a tempo word (Presto tumultuoso), at the start of a turbulent passage; it lasts until the next tempo or character word.
Tumultuous: agitated and crowded, with surging dynamics and restless accents. It describes energy and texture more than speed, so pair it with a tempo word. Late-Romantic and early modern composers, Scriabin among them, use it for climactic eruptions. Because it implies dense, surging writing, it suits textures that are already full; in a thin texture, agitato says more simply what you want.
Scriabin, Piano Sonata No. 5, Op. 53, m. 143: “Presto tumultuoso esaltato”, three bars after “Allegro fantastico”.
Tumultuoso 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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