Grace Notes

Musical Term: Obligato

In Western classical music, obligato (Italian pronunciation: [obbli’ga:to], also spelled obbligato) usually describes a musical line that is in some way indispensable in performance. Its opposite is the marking ad libitum. It can also be used, more specifically, to indicate that a passage of music was to be played exactly as written, or only by the specified instrument, without changes or omissions. The word is borrowed from Italian (an adjective meaning mandatory; from Latin obligare, to oblige.

Independence: Obligato includes the idea of independence, as in C. P. E. Bach’s 1780 Symphonies mit zwölf obligaten Stimmen (with twelve obligato parts) by which Bach was referring to the independent woodwind parts he was using for the first time. These parts were also obligato in the sense of being indispensable.

Continuo: In connection with a keyboard part in the baroque period, obligato has a very specific meaning: it describes a functional change from a basso continuo part (in which the player decided how to fill in the harmonies unobtrusively) to a fully written part of equal importance to the main melody part.

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