Glossary of Non-Italian Musical Terms

By Charles Moehnke

As musicians we all are familiar with Italian musical terminology. From our first glimpse of sheet music we are exposed to words like andante, crescendo, accelerando and meno mosso until they become a natural part of our lexicon.
However, many composers choose to write instructions in their native language, which can lead to some missteps during sight reading if you’re not familiar with terms across a wide variety of languages.

With this in mind, I thought it might be useful to share a short list of the common non-Italian musical terms as found in three sheet music collections from our shelves: Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder for voice and piano, Debussy Preludes, Book 1 for piano solo, and Segovia’s Master of the Guitar for classical guitar.

Let’s start with Kindertotenlieder. Mahler is known for his careful attention to articulation and phrasing within his music, but if you don’t speak German you may find yourself ignoring his instructions entirely. I’d suggest committing the following common German terms and phrases to memory. These will also come in handy when playing the works of Hindemith, Wagner or Schoenberg and other German sheet music written since the Romantic period.

Common German musical terms:

(sehr) ausdrucksvoll	(very) expressive
(etwas) bewegter	moving forward (a bit)
breit	broad
einfach	simple
fließend	flowing
fröhlich	joyful
heftiger	violently
immer sehr stark	staying loud; literally “always very much”
klagend	sonorous
langsam	slow
lebhaft	lively
lustig	cheerful
mässig	moderate tempo
mit Empfindung	with emotion
mit verhaltener Stimme	in a low or restrained voice
nach und nach	gradually
nicht eilen	not rushed
nicht schleppend	not dragging
nicht zurückhaltend	not held back
ruhig	softly
schlicht	simply
schmerzlich	sorrowful
schnell	fast
sehr getragen	very sustained
steigernd	increasing or swelling
traurig	sad
vorgetragen	brought out
wie zu Anfang	as at the beginning
zart	tenderly
zögernd	hesitant

As beautiful as French is, who can blame Debussy, Ravel, Satie and many other French composers for writing in their native tongue? Sometimes these composers almost entirely abandon the common Italian terms, and they can be quite verbose in their instruction, so Google Translator may be required for the less Francophilic among us. However, if you can commit this list to memory, you’ll be able to figure out most of the composers intention in a pinch, or in the case of the Debussy Preludes, you can always use the handy French sheet music glossary in the back!

Common French musical terms:

allant	moving
augmentant beaucoup	increasing greatly
avec humour	with humor
capricieux	capricious or playful
cédez	gradually slowing down
concentré	focused
doux	sweet, gentle
doucement	gently
douloureux	sad
égal	equal
emporté	passionate
en cédant	slowing down
en dehors	bring out
en serrant	pressing forward
estompé	softened
incisive	sharp and biting
léger	light and nimble
librement	freely
lointain	far away
marqué	marked or accented
modéré	moderate
moqueur	mocking
mouvt.	back to original tempo
au mouvt.	A Tempo
plus retenu	more held back
rageur	with anger
sans nuances	without shadings
sans presser	without rushing
sans rigueur	freely
sec	dry
serrez	getting faster
soutenu	sustain
trés doux	very sweet
trés souple	very flexible

While less common for most of us, classical guitarists will often run across Spanish markings. The following list from Segovia’s album is probably already familiar to the guitarists out there, but the rest of us will benefit when playing sheet music by Ponce, Rodrigo or Piazzolla, to name a few.

Common Spanish musical terms:

bien cantado	sing out; literally “sung well”
calmo	calm
cantando	singing
cediendo poco	giving way a little bit
claras ambas voces	make both voices clear
con calor	with passion; literally “with heat”
con dulzura	gently
con gracia	gracefully
destacado con humor	highlighted with humor
ligero	light
marcado	marked
mas animato	more animated
my ligado	connected; without pause
ritmico	rhythmic
suave	soft

Of course, if memorizing all these terms feels too much like you’re back in music theory class, you can always cheat and keep one of our pocket music dictionaries on hand!

Charles Moehnke is the Search Marketing Manager at Sheet Music Plus and holds degrees in bassoon performance from Indiana University and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.