Attacca

Attacca, abbreviated att., is Italian for ‘attack’. As a notation direction it instructs the performer to proceed immediately to the next movement or section without any break — no pause, no breath, no resetting. The marking creates dramatic continuity between sections.

The direction is most commonly used between movements of multi-movement works. Without an attacca marking, performers (and conductors) typically pause between movements, often for several seconds. The attacca eliminates this pause, creating a continuous musical flow.

The device is dramatically powerful. Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony famously connects the third movement to the finale via an attacca — the music swells from the scherzo into the triumphant opening of the finale without pause. Many late Romantic composers use attacca to bind their movements into continuous symphonic structures.

Italian, imperative of attaccare (‘to attack’), from Frankish stakka (‘pole’).

Don’t pause. The transition from one movement to the next should feel inevitable. Practice the connection at performance tempo to ensure smooth handoff.