DE wild character common Support my free tools
How is wild played?
The performer attacks the passage with unbridled fierceness, abandoning the polite restraint of normal concert tone. As a German-language expressive direction (rather than an Italian one), it belongs to the Romantic and modern tradition in which composers wrote character cues in their own vernacular. Mahler is the classic case: his scores carry vivid German markings, and 'wild' appears among the inner expression cues catalogued for his Symphony No. 2. The word usually qualifies an existing tempo or dynamic — it tells you how to play, not how fast.
How does wild sound?
Ferocious, unrestrained, almost out-of-control energy, as if the music has slipped its leash.
In context
'wild' is the German for wild/fierce/furious and functions as a character marking in the German Romantic vocabulary. It is documented among the German expression terms in Mahler's Symphony No. 2, part of his habit of cueing performers in German rather than Italian.
Equivalent terms
- IT selvaggio
- FR sauvage
- EN wild
- DA vildt