adv. and sb: Mus. Pl. stretti, also strettos. [It. = narrow: see STRAIT a.] A. adv. A direction to perform a passage, esp. a final passage, in quicker time.
1753. Chambers’ Cycl., Suppl., Stretto, in the Italian music, is sometimes used to signify that the measure is to be short and concise, and consequently quick. In this sense it stands opposed to largo.
1801. Busby, Dict. Mus.
1883. Grove, Dict. Mus., III. 739/2.
B. sb. (See quot. 1869.)
1854. Cherubini’s Counterpoint, 65. The stretto is … one of the essential requisites of a fugue.
1869. Ouseley, Counterpoint, xxi. 166. In a fugue the stretto is an artifice by which the subject and answer are, as it were, bound closer together, by being made to overlap.
1898. G. B. Shaw, Perf. Wagnerite, 3. In classical music … there are fugues, with counter-subjects, strettos, and pedal points.
attrib. 1887. Banister, Mus. Anal., 133. Alternating such fragments, or bringing them together, stretto fashion.
