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- Abbreviation
- smorz.
How is smorzando played?
Let the sound seem to be put out by reducing intensity, resonance and musical energy toward silence or the marked endpoint. Treccani makes the decrease to extinction central and says a progressive slowing accompanies it only sometimes, so do not add a ritardando unless another marking or the phrase supports one. Diminuendo names a dynamic decrease more neutrally, ritardando changes speed, calando commonly combines softening and slowing, perdendosi suggests losing itself, and morendo suggests dying away. Smorzando can overlap with any of these in a particular score, but it does not make them universal synonyms. Follow the notated span, arrival dynamic, tempo marks and phrase position.
How does smorzando sound?
The music seems to be snuffed out — softening and slackening as if a flame were dying down to nothing.
In context
Smorzando comes from smorzare, to extinguish or put out. Treccani prints both sm. and smorz. and defines a decrease of sound intensity until extinction, sometimes accompanied by slowing; Grove places it in the historical territory of morendo while noting that smorzando may occur during a piece. Music dictionaries from 1802 onward repeatedly print Smorz. or smorz. and make dying or extinguishing the core, with some sources adding a slower delivery. This long record, together with nineteenth-century score examples, supports smorz. as the clearer public abbreviation; the shorter sm. remains insufficiently corroborated and more ambiguous.