Col legno

Col legno ( Italian for " with the wood ") is a statement game for string instruments, which has a brittle, percussive sound to the target. The strings are either not easily defeated with the hair of the bow, but with the wooden rod (col legno battuto, the original col legno ) or deleted (col legno tratto ).

As bizarre effect appears col legno in the 17th century until the late Romantic period, it is rather rare, since it is often used. The New Music no longer starts with the intention of alienating or grotesque.

For the first time called Tobias Hume this technique in one of his works, including Capriccio Stravagante by Carlo Farina it occurs. In the last movement of Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 5 characterizes the col legno the so-called " Turkish issue ". Joseph Haydn required in the second movement of his Symphony No. 67, the Col legno game with damper. Especially in the large ensemble Symphony Orchestra, the effect is impressive to advantage, as in Franz Liszt's Mazeppa, Gustav Mahler's Second Symphony (1st movement, bars 304ff. ), Arthur Honegger's La danse macabre or Arnold Schoenberg's Moses und Aron.

Some instrumentalists refuse to execute this line type or create for this purpose a second bow, because with this technique the wood of the bow stick may come to harm.

The game instruction is col legno ord by arco or. ( Ordinary ) undone.