Concerto

How to spell concerto

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce concerto

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does concerto mean?

1. nounA musical composition written for one or more solo instruments accompanied by an orchestra.

Concerto in a sentence

• The pianist rehearsed the difficult concerto for three months before the recital.

• The orchestra opened the evening with a violin concerto by Brahms.

Where does concerto come from?

Language of origin: Italian

This is a borrowing from Italian, where concerto named a piece in which one or more solo instruments play against a full orchestra. The Italian noun grew out of the verb concertare, which carried two pulling senses at once: 'to bring into harmony, to arrange together' and, paradoxically, 'to contend or strive', from the Latin concertare meaning 'to contest or dispute' (built on con-, 'together', and certare, 'to fight or contend'). That double idea suits the form perfectly, since a concerto sets the soloist both in cooperation and in friendly rivalry with the band behind them. English adopted the word in the early 1700s as the Italian style of orchestral writing swept across Europe, and we kept the Italian spelling and the soft 'ch' sound of the original. Because we imported it whole rather than reshaping it, the tricky part for writers is simply remembering the Italian -certo ending rather than an English-looking -serto or -certoe.

How the word is built

• concert- (from Italian concerto: a musical agreement or contest of voices)
• -o (Italian noun ending)