What is a Mannhein Rocket?

[Shiva]

I keep hearing this term in texts on music and as far as I can tell, it is some kind of stock figure usually described as a rising arpeggio from the lowest bass to the highest soprano note. Can anyone shed some light onto this for me?

Thanks

[ttw]

Mannheim Skyrocket.

It's basically an upward arpeggio crescendo. Mozart's "Jupiter Symphony" has lots of examples.

According to musical folklore, the Mannheim Orchestra was one of the first to be able to perform an orchestral crescendo or decrescendo.

[Thorolf]

A couple of inaccuracies: The Mannheim rocket denotes a particular kind of series of rapidly ascending chords, all broken/arpeggiated, e. g.: c e g c' - e g c' e' - g c' e' g' - c' e' g' c'' etc., not a crescendo by itself, but giving that general effect and regularly perfomed with one.

Also, what’s denoted as the Mannehim Crescendo is a rapid orchestral crescendo.



Regards