FR sans rigueur tempo common Support my free tools
How is sans rigueur played?
Let timing remain flexible when the surrounding score applies the phrase to rhythm, preserving a freer, non-rigid feeling without losing coherent pulse or phrase. The literal phrase removes strictness or exactness; by itself it does not mean accelerate, slow down or play rubato in one predetermined way. Debussy’s Voiles is the clearest model: Modéré sets the tempo separately, while Dans un rythme sans rigueur et caressant asks for a rhythm without rigidity and a caressing character. Shape time freely enough to avoid stiffness, but do not make it chaotic, shapeless or detached from ensemble and notation.
How does sans rigueur sound?
Freer time, but not shapeless time.
Sans rigueur isn't really a tempo marking at all, to my mind — it's closer to an instruction about rhythmic freedom. CNRTL's core sense of rigueur is exactness, precision, regularity, so sans rigueur asks a performer to loosen that regularity rather than to play at any particular speed. Its best-known appearance makes the point for me: Debussy heads his prelude Voiles "Dans un rythme sans rigueur et caressant" (in a rhythm without rigidity, and caressing), pairing the word explicitly with rhythm and character, not tempo.
In context
CNRTL’s rigueur centres on strictness and exactness, while Debussy’s first edition of Voiles prints Modéré — Dans un rythme sans rigueur et caressant. The score therefore supports “without strict metric rigidity,” “flexible timing” and “freer time, but not shapeless time,” yet also limits the claim: sans rigueur modifies rhythm in this context and is not an automatic acceleration, deceleration or universal tempo instruction. No stable general abbreviation was established, so the phrase remains written out.
Equivalent terms
- IT liberamente
- DE frei
- DE nicht streng im Tempo
- EN without strictness
- EN not rigidly in time