Lacrimoso

Lacrimoso is Italian for ‘tearful’. As a performance direction it indicates that the music should be played with sad, mournful, weeping character. The marking is one of the most explicit emotional directions in the Italian vocabulary, calling for actual emotional weight, not merely slow tempo.

The character is sorrowful and vulnerable. Lacrimoso passages should sound as if the music itself were weeping — tone slightly strained, phrasing sigh-like, rubato around emotional peaks. The marking is most famous from the Lacrimosa of Mozart’s Requiem, an explicit setting of the Latin text describing the day of judgment.

The direction is closely related to mesto, doloroso, and lamentoso. Lacrimoso specifically suggests tears — a moment of breaking emotional restraint, of grief made audible. The performer must convey real sorrow through every musical detail.

Italian, ‘tearful’, from Latin lacrimosus, from lacrima (‘tear’).

Play with palpable sorrow. Phrasing should sigh; tone should be slightly strained; rubato should add emotional weight. Don’t overdo melodrama — but don’t hold back from genuine grief either.