Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adverb & adjective Suddenly or strongly accented. Used chiefly as a direction.
- noun A sforzando tone or chord.
from The Century Dictionary.
- In music, forced or pressed; with sudden, decided energy or emphasis: especially applied to a single tone or chord which is to be made particularly prominent. Abbreviated sf. and sfz., or marked ⟩, ∧.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective (Mus.) Forcing or forced; -- a direction placed over a note, to signify that it must be executed with peculiar emphasis and force; -- marked
fz (an abbreviation offorzando ),sf ,sfz , or �.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun music A
tempo mark directing that a passage is to be played with a strong initialattack - noun music A passage having this mark
- adverb music played in this style
- adjective music describing a passage having this mark
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun an accented chord
- noun (music) a notation written above a note and indicating that it is to be played with a strong initial attack
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Anna Zubrzycki, the company's co-founder, lends Lady Macbeth a steely determination, but relies overmuch on sforzando by which odd phrases are intemperately bellowed.
Macbeth - review Michael Billington 2010
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It must have been true also of works such as the often passed - over Second Symphony, whose jagged first movement about seven minutes of music, not counting the repeat of the exposition contains the indications forte, fortissimo, sforzando (reinforced, strongly accented), forte - piano, or sforzando - piano at more than 260 points, and the instruction "crescendo" at 17 points.
'The Ninth' 2010
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Hope-Jones has also recently invented a means of controlling the swell shutters from the manual keys to a sufficient extent to produce certain sforzando effects.
The Recent Revolution in Organ Building Being an Account of Modern Developments George Laing Miller
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The coupler being brought on and off by a pedal, sforzando effects could be produced, or the first beat in cadi measure strongly accented in the style of the orchestration of the great masters.
The Recent Revolution in Organ Building Being an Account of Modern Developments George Laing Miller
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The difference between _sforzando_, _rinforzando_, and
Music Notation and Terminology Karl Wilson Gehrkens 1928
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It is because of misunderstanding with regard to this point that dynamic effects are so frequently overdone by amateurs, both conductors and performers seeming to imagine that every time the word _crescendo_ occurs the performers are to bow or blow or sing at the very top of their power; and that _sforzando_ means a violent accent approaching the effect of
Essentials in Conducting Karl Wilson Gehrkens 1928
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In each wind instrument I have defined the scope of greatest expression, that is to say the range in which the instrument is best qualified to achieve the various grades of tone, (forte, piano, cresc., dim., sforzando, morendo, etc.) — the register which admits of the most expressive playing, in the truest sense of the word.
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Page 187 capacity for provocative utterance; he knows how to get a touch of bellicosity into the most banal of doctrines; he is forever on tiptoe, forever challenging, forever sforzando
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The rapid figure in the second measure is for solo violin, heard softly against the sustained interval of the diminished ninth, but the final G natural is snapped out by the whole orchestra _sforzando_.
A Book of Burlesques 1918
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The energy, superhuman energy, of the thing is amazing: the storm throbs in the forest: one feels the pulse of the storm-god; the sforzando shocks and shrieks add to the terrific wildness of the scene.
Richard Wagner Runciman, John F 1913
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