Rubato

What it means

Rubato means stolen. The full term is tempo rubato: stolen time. Practising this is easier with the free metronome. The notation section covers the rest of this group.

It describes expressive flexibility of tempo within a phrase: lingering slightly on some notes, moving slightly through others, so that the music breathes rather than proceeding mechanically.

The stealing metaphor is the key. Time taken from one place is given back in another, so the overall pulse remains.

How it differs from a tempo change

A crucial distinction and one students frequently miss.

A ritardando is a marked structural change. The tempo slows and the listener is meant to hear it as a slowing.

Rubato is flexibility within a tempo that remains stable overall. The listener hears expression rather than a tempo change.

If a passage played with rubato ends up substantially slower than it started, that is not rubato; it is an unintentional ritardando.

The give-and-take is what makes it rubato rather than drift.

The give and take

The classical understanding: time borrowed must be repaid.

If a phrase lingers on its peak note, it makes up the time by moving slightly through the notes after it. The bar, or the phrase, occupies roughly its proper duration.

Some traditions of rubato are looser and do not insist on strict repayment. But the principle keeps rubato from becoming general slowing, which is what it degenerates into when students apply it without discipline.

The Chopin principle

Frequently cited and worth knowing, though it applies more to piano than to violin.

Chopin described rubato as the melody moving flexibly while the accompaniment holds strict time. The left hand keeps the pulse; the right hand plays around it.

On violin, playing solo, there is no accompaniment to hold steady, so the whole texture flexes together.

In a sonata with piano, the Chopin principle can apply directly: the violinist takes rubato while the pianist holds the pulse, or the reverse.

How much, by style

The judgement that matters and where taste has changed most.

Baroque. Minimal. Some flexibility at cadences and in expressive moments, but the pulse is generally steady.

Classical. Small. A slight lean into a phrase peak, a small yield at a cadence.

Romantic. Substantial and expected. Considerable flexibility, and a Romantic performance played in strict time sounds mechanical.

Contemporary. Depends entirely on the composer, and many specify precisely.

Applying Romantic rubato to Bach is a stylistic error as clear as playing wrong notes.

The over-application problem

The most common failure.

A student who discovers rubato applies it everywhere: every phrase lingers, every peak stretches, every cadence yields.

The result is self-indulgent and, paradoxically, less expressive. When everything is flexible, nothing stands out.

Rubato works by contrast. A phrase that stretches means something because the phrases around it did not.

The drift problem

The other common failure.

Rubato without repayment becomes gradual slowing. A movement played with generous rubato throughout can end substantially slower than it began.

Recording and checking the tempo at start and end reveals this immediately, and most students who use rubato freely are surprised by how much they have drifted.

In an ensemble

Rubato is difficult in a group and nearly impossible in a large one.

In a duo or a quartet, players can agree on the shape and follow each other. It requires rehearsal and considerable listening.

In an orchestral section, individual rubato is impossible; the section must move together, which means following the conductor rather than personal expression.

This is one reason orchestral playing feels constrained to players trained as soloists.

When it is marked

Occasionally. Tempo rubato appears as an instruction, indicating the passage should be played with flexibility.

Far more often it is unmarked and assumed. Romantic repertoire expects rubato without saying so, and a performance that omits it entirely sounds wrong even though every marking has been observed.

How it is taught

Late, and cautiously.

A student needs a secure sense of pulse before flexibility can be added meaningfully. Rubato applied over an unstable tempo is indistinguishable from poor rhythm.

The teaching approach is usually by demonstration and imitation, since the amount and placement are matters of taste that resist description.

Listening to recordings, particularly comparing several performances of the same work, teaches more about rubato than any explanation.

Checking whether it is rubato or drift

A simple test that most students fail the first time.

Record a movement played with your usual rubato. Compare the tempo of the opening eight bars with the closing eight.

If the end is substantially slower than the beginning, the rubato has become drift. Time was taken and never given back.

Genuine rubato returns to itself. The phrase breathes and the underlying pulse survives.

Learning it from recordings

Rubato resists description, which is why teaching it by explanation rarely works.

The productive approach is comparison. Find three recordings of the same movement by different players. Listen specifically for where each one takes time and where they give it back.

The differences are substantial and instructive. It becomes obvious that rubato is a set of choices rather than a technique, and that reasonable musicians choose differently.

Students who do this stop applying rubato as a general softening and start using it as a specific expressive decision.

Questions about reading and notation are the kind that get answered quickly in person. Private and group violin lessons in Duluth, Buford and Peachtree Corners: call 470-789-2422 or book a no-commitment evaluation lesson.