Appassionato
Put heat into the phrase rather than piling on volume
Related
Appassionato comes from the Italian passione, "passion", whose Latin root passio first meant "suffering". It asks for heated emotional commitment: a line with direction, accents with a reason, a fuller colour.
It speaks of heat, not of speed or volume. Appassionato can be quiet as long as the phrase is taut inside, and it works at a moderate tempo. The usual mistake is to play it as "loudest, slowest, heaviest vibrato" — piling on makes passion noisy; real feeling comes from where the phrase puts its weight.
Read deeper → espressivo
Sources
- appassionato 的表情含义与演奏传统，参 The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, "Appassionato"；本文为原创表述
Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.