stretto

/ˈstɹɛtəʊ/

Etymology

Borrowed from Italian stretto. Doublet of strait and strict.

adj

  1. Having gradually increasing speed.“So that over and above the public components – holidays, tourist attractions – there are private meanderings, linked to the climate as if this spell were a stretto passage in the year’s fugue: haphazard weather, aimless loves, unpredicted commitments…”

adv

  1. With gradually increasing speed.

noun

  1. The presence of two close or overlapping statements of the subject of a fugue, especially towards the end.“In classical music there are, as the analytical programs tell us, first subjects and second subjects, free fantasias, recapitulations, and codas; there are fugues, with counter-subjects, strettos, and pedal points; there are passacaglias on ground basses, canons ad hypodiapente, and other ingenuities, which have, after all, stood or fallen by their prettiness as much as the simplest folk-tune.”
  2. An acceleration in the tempo of an opera that produces an ending climax.