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Wild, untamed.
Printed above the staff, alone or as one word in a chain of character directions (“Plötzlich schneller. Leidenschaftlich. Wild.”). It may head a section or sit over one part at a climax, and lasts until the next tempo or character word.
Wild releases the player from polish: rough attacks, unrestrained crescendos, a tempo pushing at its limits. Mahler uses it for eruptions of violence inside otherwise controlled movements. Since it says nothing exact about speed or volume, pair it with the tempo change and dynamics you want. Reserve it for genuine outbursts; a score marked wild everywhere loses the effect.
Mahler, Symphony No. 5, first movement, m. 155: “Plötzlich schneller. Leidenschaftlich. Wild.” heads a sudden, faster episode; in the second movement the trumpets get a bare “wild” at ff (m. 524).
Wild 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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