Three common musical markings for gradual slowing down are ritardando, rallentando, and allargando. How do these differ from each other in interpretation and execution?
Three common musical markings for gradual slowing down are ritardando, rallentando, and allargando. How do these differ from each other in interpretation and execution? For example, I was taught many moons ago that where ritardando meant to slow down gradually, rallentando meant to slow down more dramatically, but others have said that rallentando can be more gradual, still allowing for rubato and such effects.
Is there a most common interpretation of these, or is it really up to the performer how it comes out? Does the execution change by the period of the music being played (e.g., a rit. in a Classical piece being more measured than the same in a Romantic one)?
The interpretation is based of the conductor and rehearsed on how drastic the rit. should happen and hasn't changed much since its conception. The other answer can be if it's for example a cello solo then it is how the player interprets the piece and how they please to execute the music in hand. Over the interpretation is just rehearsed until it is as the conductor pleases and one of the key things when it comes to ritardando, rallentando, and allargando is to always watch the conductor so everyone can stay in time. I've noticed that most musicians I've personally worked with in a classical setting just remember those few bars so they can look at the conductor so they interpret and execute the phrase as expressed. It's just very muddy in general considering we don't necessarily know how composers and conductors made those change of speed how it was rehearsed but I'm sure it's fairly similar to what I just described.
