Hi, I'm Anna and this is My Italian Circle.
Everybody knows the meaning of piano and forte, even if they don’t speak Italian.
Along with tempo markings, dynamic markings in Italian are found
almost everywhere in classical music. Let’s see them together!
Dynamics in music indicates the changes in loudness within a piece.
The loud and soft parts of a piece are like the lights and shadows
in a painting, and dynamics is one of the main ways
with which the performer can make music expressive and moving.
The king of instruments itself, il pianoforte, is named
after the soft (piano) and loud (forte) sounds that it can produce. 
It’s no coincidence that the piano was invented in Italy,
when Bartolomeo Cristofori (yes, the accent goes on the first “o”!) 
added dynamic control to the harpsichord around the year 1700.
Let’s see dynamic markings from the softest to the loudest.
Please note that the word “pianississimo” for ppp is not Italian.
The double superlative would be “pianissimissimo”
but “più che pianissimo” is more appropriate.
Some composers also use a marking with 4 p’s or even more,
for which words such as “pianissississimo”,
“pianississississimo” and so on are sometimes used, 
but again, these are not real Italian words!
As with tempo markings, these words do not provide 
an accurate indication of the actual loudness required by the composer,
and must be considered relatively to each other.
Louder than piano, but still not as loud as mezzo forte.
Mezzo means “half” or “middle”.
Almost as loud as forte, but not there yet. 
Gradually increasing in loudness; crescere means “to grow”,
so crescendo literally means “growing”. For those interested in grammar,
it’s a gerund, like many others of these terms.
The opposite of crescendo; getting softer. Diminuire means “to decrease”.
Note the pronunciation: it’s dìmiNUendo, not dimìGNIUendo.
All these terms indicate an accent; sforzare and forzare mean “to force”,
rinforzare means “to reinforce”, so they all indicate a sudden increase
in loudness to emphasise a note or a chord.
There is no agreement as to whether the different markings
are to be interpreted differently; the meaning in Italian is the same.
Smorzare means to soften, to dampen; 
it’s a gradual softening that fades into nothing.
Morire means “to die”, so the sound needs to literally die away. 
It’s usually found at the end of a piece.
Quietly, in a low voice. It implies a soft sound with a whispering quality.
The last word I want to talk about is an adverb that modifies what follows 
and means “immediately”, “right away”. It is usually followed by piano:
subito piano means to suddenly soften the sound.
It is often used by Beethoven to indicate
a sharp decrease in loudness compared to what comes before.
And again, if you have trouble with the pronunciation of some words, 
try our Italian Pronunciation Guide.
Forte and sforzando definitely require a good rolled R!
With a little practice, you will get there.
In the next and final episode of this series we’ll explain many more
Italian terms that have to do with expression and articulation in music.
These are the most nuanced and interesting terms
that you will come across.
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