IT molto vibrato bowing common Support my free tools
- Abbreviation
- m.v.
How is molto vibrato played?
Italian for “with much” or “strong vibrato”. On strings, intensify the left-hand pitch oscillation beyond the surrounding normal vibrato; singers and wind players make the corresponding instrument-specific change rather than copying the string mechanism. Width and rate are separate variables, so molto does not by itself prescribe a universally wide and slow motion: score legends may call for wider, faster, stronger or more continuous vibrato. Composers often use the direction at climaxes or moments of heightened emotion. It is the intensified end of a local con-vibrato scale; French très vibré is an equivalent phrase, not an Italian short form.
How does molto vibrato sound?
The listener hears a hot, throbbing, emotionally charged tone with a conspicuously wide pitch oscillation.
In context
Molto vibrato stands beyond ordinary or con vibrato and at the opposite pole from senza or non vibrato. Performance research treats vibrato rate and width as separate, context-sensitive parameters, while primary score legends attest m.v. and longer score wording such as molto vib. The audible result may therefore be broad, rapid, strongly continuous or some combination, but it should be clearly more pronounced than the passage’s normal vibrato.