The sign of the corona or point surmounted by a semicircle showing the end of a phrase or indicating the prolongation of a note or rest beyond its usual value (often called Fermata in the USA). In French, pause means a semibreve rest; in German, Pause means any rest.
Historically and in the most general sense, the pause is a sign for one part to pay attention to the others rather than to the beat, and to wait until everybody is ready before releasing or going on to the next note. It is used to mark the ends of phrases, sections or whole pieces, as in chorales, da capo arias, variations, etc; in canons only one of whose parts is written down, it may show where a leading part is to end or it may direct one part to hold and wait for the rest to catch up; in music for a soloist, a pause in the solo part may indicate that an improvised cadenza is called for, while the corresponding pauses in the accompanying parts show that they are to wait for the soloist to finish; in any music it may indicate a suspension of the beat, as in the allegro theme of Beethoven’s op.111 or at high notes for the tenor in Italian operas. 14th-century examples of the pause may be found in Jo Cuvelier: Se galass and Franciscus: De Narcissus (CMM, liii/1(1970), 33 and 51). See also Organ point.
DAVID FULLER