Vorwärts

As Printed on a Score

Printed above the staff, alone or inside a longer direction — etwas vorwärts, immer vorwärts — and sometimes with an exclamation mark. It names a push with no built-in endpoint, so it stays in force until a new tempo word or a holding-back marking (zurückhaltend, Tempo I, wieder ruhiger) settles the pace again.

Also spelled: vorwaerts

How Composers Use It

A push, not a speed: it asks the players to move the music on, usually by a modest amount and with urgency in the phrasing as well as the pulse. It is the German vernacular cousin of stringendo and più mosso, at home in late-Romantic scores that direct tempo in plain German. Decide whether you mean a gradual press or a new, quicker tempo; for the latter, a word such as Bewegter or a metronome mark is clearer. Plan where the motion relaxes again.

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