Flebile
A weeping, faintly sorrowful tone
Related
Flebile comes from Latin flebilis, "to be wept over". It marks a tearful, faint sorrow, common in nineteenth-century Italian opera and Romantic character pieces. The sound need not be large, but it should carry a weeping inflection.
Flebile belongs with mesto and languido on the sorrowful side, yet it stresses the fragility of tears held back: breath may break, colour darkens. Plaintiveness is not sentimentality; heavy slides and vibrato turn fragility into performance. Good flebile draws the listener close instead of asking for pity.
Sources
- 术语的释义与用法，参 The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians（Oxford Music Online）相关条目；本文为原创表述
Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.