Nielsenesque instructions

[Leinster Lass]

While listening to one of Nielsen's string quartets - as one does - I realised that it's not just in the case of his 2nd symphony that he issued unusual performance instructions. Other examples include:
Allegro orgoglioso (Symphony #1)
Proposta seria (Symphony #6)
Allegro coraggioso (String Quartet Opus 14)
Adagio con sentimento religioso (String Quartet Opus 44)
A non-Nielsen example that comes to mind is Walton's Malicious Scherzo.
I'm sure there are plenty of others?

[rauschwerk]

In Prokofiev's Sarcasms can be found singhiozzando (middle of No. 3), Smanioso (head of No. 4), precipitossisimo (head of No.5). I suppose the meaning of the last one is clear enough, but I had to look up the others.

[jayne lee wilson]

While listening to one of Nielsen's string quartets - as one does - I realised that it's not just in the case of his 2nd symphony that he issued unusual performance instructions. Other examples include:
Allegro orgoglioso (Symphony #1)
Proposta seria (Symphony #6)
Allegro coraggioso (String Quartet Opus 14)
Adagio con sentimento religioso (String Quartet Opus 44)
A non-Nielsen example that comes to mind is Walton's Malicious Scherzo.
I'm sure there are plenty of others?

Fascinating round-up Liz - and from a composer I'm devoted to (an often maligned Great Symphonist like....well, you know....) You'll find some very elaborate (if less evocative) ones among the headings of Schumann and Hindemith ... but mostly in German, they might take a fair bit of copying....!

I think it is quite rare in symphonic movement titles though Elliott Carter has a few -

adagio tenebroso & allegro scorrevole from the Symphonia...
scorrevole in the Quartets too, where you'll find leggerioso and meccanico....

[Joseph K]

My favourite ones are Scriabin - avec une céleste volupté etc. My Dover copy of the sonatas is not to hand but it lists them all in translation...

[Roslynmuse]

Scriabin is indeed a fabulous inventor of weird and wonderful directions - "avec une ivresse toujours croissant" (with an ever-growing feeling of intoxication) is a good one in either the Poem of Ecstasy or Prometheus (from the Glossary at the front of my two for the price of one Dover score!)

Hugo Wolf's songs are littered with interesting directions - 'recht zaghaft und schwankend" (with trepidation and unsteady) at the end of "Wie lange schon" in the Italianisches Liederbuch, for example, although I suppose text setting invites such programmatic indications.

I seem to recall reading that Elgar was the first to use 'Nobilmente', although of course that has now comfortably entered all the musical dictionaries now. Some composers are inextricably linked with the terms they use - Howells and 'elato'.

And we mustn't forget Percy Grainger and his creative avoidance of anything Latin in origin - "louden lots" is the most familiar I suppose.

[Serial_Apologist]

Satie is full of them: "Like a Nightingale with Toothache" being the one that comes immediately to mind.