The general Romantic tendency to blur all sharp edges found its musical counterpart in the rhythmic practice of tempo rubato, or just rubato. Rubato means that in musical performance the rhythm is handled flexibly; the meter itself may waver, or else the beat is maintained strictly in the accompaniment while the melody is played or sung slightly out of phase with it. (Literally, tempo rubato means “robbed time” — that is, some time has been stolen from the beat.)

Rubato was practiced in the service of greater individual expressivity. Though seldom indicated in a score — indeed, no one has ever found an accurate way to indicate rubato in musical notation — its practice is documented by old recordings, made around 1900 by musicians who were close to the Romantic composers (or even by the composers themselves). Improvisation, in the sense of adding ornaments or other notes to a score, was all but abolished by the end of the nineteenth century. Let no mere performer tamper with notes which had been set down by a composer of transcendent genius! But performers of the time improvised rhythmically, in that they applied rubato freely to nearly every score they played.

Considered a sign of bad taste in Baroque or Classical music, at least when applied extensively, rubato is an essential expressive resource in the playing, singing, and conducting of Romantic music. A musician’s sensitivity and “feeling” depends to a great extent on his or her artistic use of rubato.