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Soft, smooth in manner.
Printed above the staff, often in parentheses over a single phrase (“(weich)”), or in a heading with another quality (“ausdrucksvoll und weich”). It shapes the passage it sits over and lapses with the next character word.
Weich asks for softness of manner rather than of level: rounded attacks, a cushioned tone, smooth connections. Wagner and Wolf use it to warm a single phrase. Pair it with the dynamic you want — weich at f is possible and means a full sound without edge. For strings it suggests more bow and less pressure; for winds, a soft-tongued attack.
Wagner, Wesendonck-Lieder, “Träume”, piano, m. 58: “(weich)” at p, two bars after a “dolce”.
Weich 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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