Tenuto (Italian for “held,” marked by a horizontal line over the note or the word ten.) is an instruction to hold a note for its full duration, and often to emphasise it slightly, to “lean on” it, giving it weight and significance.
Tenuto is the opposite of staccato: if staccato shortens the sound, tenuto instead stresses its fullness and duration. It is a subtle expressive nuance: tenuto can give a melody a singing quality, weight, and concentration, and can emphasise an important note without the sharp accent of a sforzando. To perform tenuto means to “sing” the note to the end, with inner fullness. Together with staccato, legato, and accents, tenuto belongs to the basic “vocabulary” of articulation with which a performer shapes the character of a musical phrase.
