Contrast is such an unusual feature in a Baroque piece or movement that when it does occur it can have an especially dramatic and exhilarating effect. Such is the case with the sixth movement (“Friede sei mit euch”) of Johann Sebastian Bach’s cantata Halt im Gedächtnis Jesum Christ, BWV 67 (“Hold in Remembrance, Jesus Christ”). Composed for the Sunday after Easter, April 16, 1724 (“Quasimodogeniti”) and part of the first cantata cycle that Bach planned for Leipzig in 1723–24, Halt im Gedächtnis follows close on the heels of the St. John Passion, BWV 245, composed for the Good Friday service just nine days prior on April 7, 1724. Logically, the theological message of Halt im Gedächtnis is influenced by the Gospel of John, with segments of the cantata’s text taken from John 20:19, 21 and 26.
   The fundamental theme of Halt im Gedächtnis, one that remains critical in the Christian doctrine during the period following Easter, is a reassurance of Christ’s ministry after his crucifixion; essentially, an affirmation that his death was a beneficial, even necessary occurrence. Halt im Gedächtnis explores the anxieties, the doubts and the loss of hope that Jesus’ disciples experienced in the week after the crucifixion. Each of its seven movements urges the listener to keep Jesus in their memories, as the opening chorus triumphantly exclaims. Reassurance continues in the fourth movement with a harmonization of the familiar Easter chorale Erschienen is der herrlich Tag and in the closing chorale Du Friedefürst, Herr Jesu Christ, which acknowledges Jesus as the Prince of Peace.
   The sixth movement of the cantata, an aria for solo bass with choral accompaniment (in effect, a dialogue), is a masterful representation of the disciples’ anxieties during this period. In this climactic movement, Bach composes a highly charged dramatic scene that could have been taken from a contemporary opera, in which the disciples’ anxieties are quelled through the miraculous appearance of Christ, who repeatedly offers them four words of reassurance (“Peace be unto you”). The Gospel of John records that Christ’s reassurances were understandably met with disbelief and doubt, which eventually passed with the repeated beatific utterances of “Peace be unto you.” By the aria’s conclusion, the disciples’ faith is firmly restored.
   To depict anxiety that is tempered through reassurance, Bach subdivides the aria into eight episodes, each episode alternating the heightened emotion of the disciples with the peacefulness of Christ’s utterances. Contrast is brought into play to produce a marvelous dramatic effect, achieved through contrast of timbre, texture, meter and dynamics, a rarely encountered scheme for music of this period. The disciples’ episodes feature strings, continuo and SAT voices (the choral bass voices are silent in this movement), are polyphonic, set in 4/4 time and predominantly forte. By contrast, Jesus’ episodes feature winds (a flute and two oboes d’amore, reminiscent of the “Pastoral” from the later Christmas Oratorio), continuo and a solo bass voice (the voice of Christ), are homophonic, set in 3/4 time and exclusively piano (all dynamic markings are Bach’s own). This design can be represented as follows:

1) Introduction (A major, strings, polyphonic, 4/4, forte, 9 measures)
2) Friede sei mit euch no. 1 (A major to E major, winds and bass voice, homophonic, 3/4 piano, 16 measures)
3) Wohl uns! (A major, strings and SAT voices, polyphonic, 4/4, forte, 11 measures)
4) Friede sei mit euch no. 2 (A major to F# minor, winds and bass voice, homophonic, 3/4, piano, 16 measures)
5) Jesus holet uns zu Friede (F# minor to D major, strings and SAT voices, polyphonic, 4/4, forte, 13 measures)
6) Friede sei mit euch no. 3 (D major to F# minor, winds and bass voice, homophonic, 3/4, piano, 16 measures)
7) O Herr! (F# minor to A major, strings, SAT and bass voices, 4/4, polyphonic, forte, 13 measures)
8) Friede sei mit euch no. 4 (A major, winds, strings and bass voice, homophonic, 3/4, piano, 17 measures)

All voices are used only in episode no. 7, a climactic moment in which Jesus’ words are briefly pitted against the cries of the disciples. Episode no. 8 is the only instance in which all instruments play together, the strings blending with the pastoral tones of the winds. It might also be relevant to note that each of the four episodes of “Friede sei mit euch” feature three repetitions of these words, giving a total of twelve statements in the aria. In effect, the statement is being made to each disciple in turn.
            The following example shows the opening of the aria, the bustling, virtuosic passage in the strings depicting the disciples’ anxiety (tempo is approximately quarter note equals 88):

   The Italian tempo markings that are part of our musical vocabulary have been notoriously ambiguous for centuries. Part of this may be attributed to their inexactness (contrary to the precision of metronome markings), to their double use as terms of expression and of speed (as with adagio), to their changes in meaning over time, and to the occasional incorrect use of the Italian language, which is often a foreign tongue to many musicians. Andantino is one such instance of incorrect Italian. Meaning “a little andante,” the term is, strictly speaking, not a part of the Italian vocabulary, being found only in musical contexts. Despite its use since the eighteenth century, it is a term that is fraught with misinterpretation.
   The problem most likely stems from the root andante itself; specifically, is andante a fast or a slow tempo? If fast, then the addition of the diminutive suffix “ino” entails a faster speed; if the converse, then it entails a slower one. There is generally no such misunderstanding when diminutive suffixes are added to other markings, such as the commonly encountered prestissimo and allegrissimo (faster than presto and allegro, respectively), allegretto (slower than allegro), or larghetto and adagietto (faster than largo and adagio, respectively). Presto, allegro, largo and adagio are unambiguous indications of speed; as a result, diminutive suffixes added to these terms are generally unequivocal.
   One wonders who the first musician was to introduce the term andantino—probably not an Italian—and how the term gained currency in eighteenth-century Europe. Its time of origin seems to be the mid-eighteenth century, at some point in the course of Wolfgang Mozart’s lifetime. Of the important eighteenth-century treatises that addressed the meanings of Italian tempo indications, andantino was not mentioned in Sébastien de Brosard’s Dictionaire de musique of 1703, Alexander Malcom’s Treatise of Musick of 1721, James Grassineau’s Musical Dictionary of 1740, Johann Joachim Quantz’s Versuch einer Anweisung die Flöte zu spielen of 1752, or Leopold Mozart’s Violinschule of 1756. Jean-Jacques Rousseau was one of the first theorists to mention it in his Dictionaire de musique of 1768, in which he described it as “an andante with less gaiety in the beat” (thus, slower than andante). Subsequent treatises by Türk (1789), Clementi (1801) and Hummel (1828) agreed with Rousseau, although J. B. Cartier’s L’art du violin of 1798 ranked it faster than andante and slower than allegro. (Cartier also listed allegretto as faster than allegro, which would imply that his interpretation of Italian diminutive suffixes was incorrect.) Of these theorists, only Clementi was a native Italian speaker.
   The first musical usage of andantino, to my knowledge, was the second movement of Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg’s Partita in G Major of 1756, the year of Leopold Mozart’s Violinschule and Wolfgang Mozart’s birth. Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (though not Johann Sebastian Bach), Wolfgang Mozart and (less so) Joseph Haydn used the term on occasion, and evidence supports the claim that these composers understood the term to be slower than andante (meaning, for them, andante was a slow tempo). Consider, for example, the Andantino section from Mozart’s Fantasia in C Minor, K. 475 of 1785:

Following a turbulent allegro section, this andantino passage demands a slow tempo (though certainly not as slow as the opening Adagio) for the thirty-second notes to be articulated properly. For example, the performer must execute the thirty-second note following the double-dotted eighth-note rest at the end of the first measure in such a way that it is not perceived as a sixteenth note. A fairly slow tempo is thus necessary for this to be accomplished, perhaps slow enough for the eighth note to be the main beat.
   However, at some point thereafter, the term entered a checkered period of convolution and confusion. Beethoven, a composer always concerned for indicating the proper tempo markings, was deeply troubled by the term and used it sparingly. His concern with it is seen in the frustration he expressed in an 1813 letter to his Edinburgh publisher, in which he requested that folk melodies sent to him for harmonization that carried the term andantino be accompanied by clarification as to whether they were faster or slower than andante. Through the nineteenth century, andantino somehow transformed from a slower andante to a faster andante (meaning, for nineteenth-century musicians, andante was a fast tempo), yet instances of confusion and misinterpretation persisted. Merely one example is the way in which nineteenth-century composers, following Beethoven’s lead, combined common tempo markings as a means for specifying more precise indications. We find frequent instances of the indication Allegretto quasi andantino in such nineteenth-century scores as Schubert’s Rondo in A Major for piano, D. 951 and the third movement of Brahms’ Symphony No. 2, Op. 73. Confusion deepens when the reverse is found (Andantino quasi allegretto), as in the second movement of Saint-Saëns’ Violin Concerto No. 3, Op. 61 and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade. Which of the two is a faster tempo? Or are they two ways of expressing the same thing?
   For better or worse, there is no English, French or German equivalent for andantino, which might explain why Claude Debussy used the term over the course of his career, even once French became his chosen language for musical indications. Andantino is the tempo specified in his “Menuet” from Suite bergamasque, and the more explicit Andantino con moto in Arabesque No. 1 and Ballade. The exquisite “Reflets dans l’eau” from Images I opens with the rather troubling term Andantino molto; does the qualifier molto imply a faster or a slower speed? Debussy was prone to using macaronic forms—which would suggest that the term conveyed a meaning that no French word could—as with the indications Andantino sans lenteur in the famous Rêverie and Andantino, doucement expressif in the third movement of the String Quartet, Op. 10. The latter, however, is accompanied by a metronome marking of eighth note equals 80, which in this instance demonstrates that andantino was a request for slowness and tranquility.
   Surprisingly, the term, despite its ambiguity, has survived into the twentieth century, appearing in the scores of Sibelius, Stravinsky, Villa-Lobos and Hindemith. Despite the numerous examples that may be found of the its usage, andantino remains something of an enigma even to this day. It is a term whose very appearance on the page may imply something psychological to the experienced musician, yet whose true meaning defies a precise definition.