stretto

plural strettos · plural stretti

1. countableuncountableentertainmentThe presence of two close or overlapping statements of the subject of a fugue, especially towards the end.

   1 more example

   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.

   1902 [1898], [George] Bernard Shaw, The Perfect Wagnerite […] , second edition, London: Grant Richards, page 3

2. countableuncountableentertainmentAn acceleration in the tempo of an opera that produces an ending climax.

1. not comparableentertainmentWith gradually increasing speed.

1. not comparableentertainmentHaving 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…

   1960, Thomas Pynchon, Entropy