The last bar of the orchestral ritornel must be played a good deal ritardando, so as to make the tempo of this postlude even more majestic where the trumpets enter, by which means also the violins will be enabled to bring out the lively staccato figures strongly and clearly.
"Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1"
Francis Hueffer (translator)
With deliberate slowness, ritardando con molto sentimento, I worked my way to the familiar restaurant.
"Old Calabria"
Norman Douglas
Very appropriately, the new theme first appears like a delicate, hardly distinguishable dream, in unbroken pp, and is then lost in a melting ritardando; thereafter, by means of a crescendo, it enters its true sphere, and proceeds to unfold its real nature.
"On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music"
Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)