Hi Don,
Post by Don A. Gilmore"Poco" in music would better be translated as "a little", meaning
'somewhat', rather than just "little", which seems to imply smallness.
There is a difference between "poco", which means "not very", and "un
poco" (or un po') which means "somewhat". "Poco moto" really means "not
very fast" (loose translation because "moto" is difficult to translate
literally).
Post by Don A. GilmoreI
would interpret "poco moto" as indicating a tempo somewhere around
andantino.
Yes.
Post by Don A. GilmoreIt's known that Beethoven was perplexed by the meaning of "andantino" and he
usually avoided its use. He considered it an ambiguous marking since it is
not intuitively clear whether andantino means "faster than andante" or
"slower than andante". The "-ino" suffix simply indicates "more andante".
Since andante is a relatively medium-to-slow tempo in music, one might
interpret it as "more slowness", just as you might interpret "largissimo".
You appear to have conflated "-ino", which is a diminutive suffix, with
"-issimo", the superlative suffix.
Post by Don A. GilmoreSo I guess its translation depends on whether you consider andante (walking
pace) a relatively slow activity or that more andante means more (faster)
motion.
In modern music andantino is considered to be a little faster than andante.
Here is the definition of Andantino from the Concise Oxford Dictionary
of Music:
"A diminution of andante. Unfortunately, some composers use it
meaning a little slower than andante, and others use it as
meaning a little quicker. (If a performer, use your own
judgement; if a composer, avoid the ambiguous term.)"
Best regards,
--
Simon
UK Go Challenge for schools, Summer term 2004
http://www.ukgochallenge.com