Ever wonder about the difference between rallentando and ritardando? Well, I did….so I decided to look into it and add my two cents to the debate. =)
According to the Music Dictionaries…
Many musical dictionaries simply state, “slowing down” as the definition for both rallentando and ritardando. Some state that the two words are synonyms. However, I would still like to think there is some slight difference in meaning or emphasis between the two words. After all, they are two different words in the Italian language. And composers have been making use of both words in their compositions for centuries. So I decided to do a little more digging.
According to the people on the web…
Some people (here too) state that rallentando is a more gradual slowing down than ritardando. However, it’s not clear whether they mean that the ritardando is to occur over a shorter period of time than the rallentando, or whether the ritardando is a greater slowing of the tempo than a rallentando over the same period of time. One person on this forum compared a rallentando to coasting to a stop in your car and a ritardando to braking to a stop. There is a lot of debate on various forums on the internet, but very little is conclusive.
According to the Italian-English Dictionaries…
Upon entering the words into an Italian-English Dictionary, I found these definitions:
- Ritardare: “be late, wait, retard, lag, stay, lose, delay, set back, defer, put off.”
- Rallentare: “slow down, reduce speed, slacken, slow, die down, decelerate, check, put back.”
Bingo! There is a difference. Ritardando seems to be a deliberate slowing or being late, while rallentando seems to be more of a letting go or dying away.
Well, so what?
The difference is a subtle but important one, methinks.
A couple of examples: The end of a Bach piece would probably require a ritardando in order to create a deliberate, final-sounding ending to the piece. I can think of some Debussy and Liszt pieces, however, where a rallentando might be more appropriate, to give the effect of dying away, drifting away, or perhaps falling asleep. The rallentando, I imagine, is often accompanied by a diminuendo, and should probably be more gradual than the ritardando in many cases. However, the crucial difference between the two seems to be one of musical intent and effect.
To get this all confirmed, I suppose we’d need a native Italian speaker. However, I like to think that we’re on the right track — or at least we’re closer to the real answer than if we’d assume they meant precisely the same thing! It’s something to think about.
Photo credit: dannysullivan | CC 2.0
Joy is a pianist and teacher in Ohio with great passion for helping students experience the wonders of music making! Here at Color In My Piano, she enjoys sharing and exchanging ideas and resources for piano teaching.
17 Comments
I think the more interesting question is asking what each individual composer thought it meant when they used these terms in their music. It really doesn’t matter what a dictionary thinks does it?
Good point, Ellen — no doubt there are composers who use / have used the terms incorrectly. Italian composers such as Puccini, Paganini, Bellini, Busoni, Verdi etc. (and other composers who lived in Italy at some point during their lives) no doubt perceived a difference between the two words. The fluent Italian speaker would also recognize the difference. Languages are funny things – words can mean different things depending on the context, and oftentimes you have to be fluent or native to a language to understand the correct usage and meaning of the word. Maybe I’m a little too optimistic – but I’d like to think that the subtle difference between the two words as musical terms has survived throughout the centuries, even if it is sometimes misused. I’m certainly not claiming to completely understand the difference between ritardando and rallentando, but by this post I’d like to at least suggest that there IS a difference.
On a side note – I have a found a few online music dictionaries which have defined rallentando as “slackening in tempo” and ritardando as “slowing down.” That seems a little more accurate.
I had always considered rallentando to be a more dramatic slowing than ritardando, basically a greater slowing over the same period of time. Interesting that most people on the web seem to disagree.
I found this topic very helpful. I was always a little embarrassed that I couldn’t define these two words to my satisfaction. I thought I had just “missed” that theory page somewhere. Thank you, Joy!
You’re welcome! =)
Interestingly, Tchaikovsky (say in Symph No 6) uses ‘Ritenuto’ if the slowing down is over a few beats, ‘Rallentando’ when over a few bars, and ‘Ritardando’ when a much more dramtic slowing of the tempo is required. Mind you, there are not many composers who use ‘Incalzando’ in between the ‘Ritenuto’ moments. Mind you there is another conundrum for us: ‘Incalzando’, ‘Affrettando’, ‘Stringendo’, ‘Animando’, ‘Accellerando’, and ‘Animato’ – it’s what makes musical interpretation such fun!!
Just to complicate the problem even further we get the use of the word ‘quasi’ before a term. As if we haven’t got enough confusing words, we get “quasi Adagio” for example! What’s that all about?
Andy H
Of course it’s easy if you are a conductor (I am), because they all mean “watch the conductor!”
Great comments, Andy!
Well done Joy, I think you did us all a favour! I tend to think of Ritardando meaning “heald back” and rallentando meaning “slow down”, which goes along with what you said about ral. being like dying away, but I think also implies that the tempo might speed back up again after a rit..
Thanks!
You’re welcome!
Thanks a lot Joy for charing this! As a composer a should have known it, so it is a kind of embarrassing;-)
So Joy, question: How does a ritenuto then fit into the picture? Thanks for your input of rit. vs. rall…..very helpful!!!
Tough question, Wendy!! I did find a source online that suggested that ritenuto is generally used in the middle of a piece rather than at the end (can anyone confirm this?). Then I plugged the Italian verb “ritenuto” into that handy dandy online translator, and found this:
Ritenuto: “to believe, to consider, to retain, to feel, to consider oneself.”
Let’s assume that ritenutos do indeed occur during the middle of a piece rather than at the end. I would take this to mean that the performer is slowing down as if to think for a moment and consider something, or perhaps even lose his/her train of thought……and then at the a tempo, it is as if the performer’s mind is brought back to the present and continues telling the story.
What do you think?! It’s a slight difference in meaning from the other two, but again — it’s a difference of musical intent and effect. It’s kind of fun to suppose what the composer might have been intending!
Great article! I never stood still at the difference between rallentando and ritardando, but now I will definitely try to make this difference.
About the difference between ritenuto and rallentando however, I learned that (assuming rit. is mostly ritenuto) ritenuto is slightly holding back in the middle of a piece, just before a tempo change and that ritardando is really slowing down, before the ending of a piece, or just untill you arrived at the next, slower tempo. Doesn’t that seem quite acceptable?
My Sibelius Software will slow down more and more rapidly for a rit and than for a rall.
Bach’s Prelude in Bb minor, Vol. 1, Well-Tempered Clavier, uses rallentando at the end, not ritardando, as suggested..