Suspiratio

The suspiratio ( Latin suspirare , “to breathe deeply”, “sigh”, “long for”) is a musical figure that is defined as the targeted use of pauses .

The suspiratio is intended to achieve the effect of longing or sighing. It often appears as a modification of a figura corta , the longer note of which is halved and then supplemented by a pause corresponding to half the value. In the psalmody the suspiratio corresponds to a caesura of short, indefinite duration; in mensural notation , any short pause can be called suspiratio.

literature

• The Musik-Brockhaus , Wiesbaden 1982.
• Ferdinand Hirsch: The great dictionary of music. New Music Publishing House, Berlin 1984.
• Dietrich Bartel: Handbook of musical figure theory. Laaber-Verlag, Laaber 1985.