Stretto

Quick meaning: Stretto is a noun meaning (music) The presence of two close or overlapping statements of the subject of a fugue, especially towards the end.

Meaning

(music) The presence of two close or overlapping statements of the subject of a fugue, especially towards the end.

More Meanings

1. (music) An acceleration in the tempo of an opera that produces an ending climax.
2. (music) With gradually increasing speed.
3. (music) Having gradually increasing speed.

Example Sentences

So that over and above the public components – holidays, tourist attractions – there are private meanderings, linked to the climate as if this spell were a stretto passage in the year’s fugue: haphazard weather, aimless loves, unpredicted commitments…

In classical music there are, as the analytical programs tell us, first subjects and second subjects, free fantasias, recapitulations, and codas; there are fugues, with counter-subjects, strettos, and pedal points; there are passacaglias on ground basses, canons ad hypodiapente, and other ingenuities, which have, after all, stood or fallen by their prettiness as much as the simplest folk-tune.

Word Forms

• strettos
• stretti

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include traverso, stratification, biceps, concertante, bichord, micropolyphony.

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