DE nicht schleppend tempo core term Support my free tools
How is nicht schleppend played?
Keep the movement from dragging, with a steady pulse and no sag in the line. The wording is adjectival—it describes the resulting manner as “not dragging”—whereas nicht schleppen is the direct command “do not drag”; their practical boundary is closely related. Do not reduce the phrase to “play faster.” Mahler explicitly places Nicht schleppend beside instructions to play once again very slowly, and Kindertotenlieder pairs it with slow or calm headings, showing that breadth, quiet and sustained note values can coexist with living momentum. Maintain that non-dragging character until another tempo or character instruction.
How does nicht schleppend sound?
Steady motion with no sag in the pulse.
Nicht schleppend is schleppend's negative twin: not dragging. Mahler's third-movement heading in the First Symphony, "Feierlich und gemessen, ohne zu schleppen" (solemn and measured, without dragging), shows the word doing exactly this job — warning against a manner of playing relative to the surrounding tempo, never specifying one.
In context
The Mahler terminology source translates nicht schleppend as “not dragging” and distinguishes it from the imperative nicht schleppen. In Symphony No. 8, Mahler places the phrase beside “once again as slowly as before,” while Kindertotenlieder uses it with slow or calm headings. These contexts preserve the baseline’s “steady motion with no sag in the pulse” and demonstrate that the correction concerns inner forward motion rather than a fixed metronome speed. No stable general abbreviation was established, so the full phrase remains.
Equivalent terms
- FR sans traîner
- IT non trascinare
- EN not dragging