Viel Ton

As Printed on a Score

Written over a part, usually with an exclamation mark (“viel Ton!”), at the phrase or note that needs more sound than its notation suggests. It applies locally and lapses when the phrase ends or a new character word is printed.

How Composers Use It

Asks for a full, round, carrying sound — more substance, not necessarily more loudness. Mahler prints it where a line must speak through the texture without a new dynamic — even on a harp, at the climax of the Adagietto, as the strings around it swell to ff. Use it for a voice that would otherwise sound timid at its marked dynamic; for strings, Großer Ton says much the same.

Example

Mahler, Symphony No. 5, fourth movement (Adagietto), harp, m. 95: “viel Ton!”, a bar before “Sehr zurückhaltend.”

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