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In musical terminology, tempo (Italian for "time") is the speed or pace of a given piece.
The tempo of a piece will typically be written at the start of a piece of sheet music. In most popular forms of music the tempo is usually indicated in beats per minute (BPM). These "beats" do not neccessarily equal the beats associated with the measure (see time signature), but are in some cases not more than a formal indication of the speed by means of a metronome mark (indicating that a certain note duration value is to be executed in an nth part of a minute). Mathematical tempo markings of this kind became increasingly popular in the first half of the 19th century, after the metronome had been invented. Also MIDI files continue to use a BPM-like formalism to record speed.
Some 20th-century composers (such as Bela Bartok and John Cage) would also, alternatively, give the total execution time of a piece as the time unit to derive the tempo from.
Whether a music piece has a mathematical time indication or not, in classical music it is customary to describe the tempo of a piece by one or more words, which is the subject of the remainder of this article. It should not surprise that most of these words are primarily used in Italian, while many of the most important early composers in the renaissance period were Italian, and that period is when tempo (and other musical indications) were used extensively for the first time. While words were the only way to describe the tempo of a composition in the time before mechanical aids to measure time became common practice, afterwards these same words would continue to be used, often additionally having mood (or other) connotations regarding how a music piece should be executed, somehow blurring the distinction that is traditionally made between 'tempo' and 'mood' indicators, e.g. "Presto" and "Allegro" both indicate a speedy execution, "Allegro" has more a connotation of "joy" (seen its original meaning in Italian), while "Presto" rather indicates speed as such (with possibly an additional connotation of virtuosity). Even additional Italian words came into practice to indicate such tempo (and mood) connotations, long after tempo could be mathematically defined by BPM, e.g. the "agitato" in the Allegro agitato of the last movement of George Gershwins piano concerto in F has both a tempo indication (undoubtedly faster than a usual "Allegro"), as a mood indication ("agitated").
Generally, composers (or music publishers) will name movements of classical compositions (and in some cases individual compositions) after their tempo (and/or mood) marking. For example Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings, now often executed - and published - as a separate piece, was originally the slow movement of a string quartet. In some cases, and this quite often up to the end of the baroque period, conventions governing musical composition were so strong that a tempo need not be indicated: e.g. the 1st movement of Bach's third Brandenburg concerto has no tempo or mood indication whatsoever: on recordings one can find this movement named alternatively, and equally correct, "Allegro", "(Allegro)", "(Without indication)", etc...
Apart from tempo and mood, a movement of a classical composition is often named after the musical form of that movement. Some of these musical forms (or musical genres) implicate a certain tempo, that needs no further explaining (i.e. most often no further tempo markings are inscribed in the score), E.g.:
See also Italian musical terms.
Common tempo markings in Italian are:
There are many additional tempo markings which are used less frequently, among them:
Some markings that primarily mark a mood (or character) also have a tempo connotation:
Many composers have used German tempo markings. Typical German tempo markings are:
One of the first German composers to use tempo markings in his native language was Ludwig van Beethoven. The one using the most elaborate combined tempo and mood markings was probably Gustav Mahler (sometimes even mixing German with Italian tempo indications): e.g. 2nd movement of his 9th symphony: Im tempo eines gemächlichen Ländlers, etwas täppisch und sehr derb, indicating a folk-dance-like movement, with some vulgarity in the execution.
English indications, for example quickly, have also been used, by Benjamin Britten, amongst many others.
Most musicians would agree that it is not possible to give Beats per minute (BPM) equivalents for these terms; the actual number of beats per minute in a piece marked allegro, for example, will depend on the music itself. A piece consisting mainly of minims (half notes) can be played very much quicker in terms of BPM than a piece consisting mainly of semi-quavers (sixteenth notes) but still be described with the same word.
Metronome manufacturers usually do assign BPM values to the traditional terms, in an attempt, perhaps misguided, to be helpful. For instance, a Wittner model MT-50 electronic metronome manufactured in the early 1990's gives the following values:
The plural of tempo in Italian is tempi. Some writers employ this plural when writing in English. Others use the native English plural tempos. Standard dictionaries reflect both usages.
Unfortunately, neither plural can be used without offending the tastes of at least some readers: inevitably, tempos will strike some readers as incorrect, and tempi will strike other readers as pretentious. Careful writers will assess their context and choose accordingly.
When performers unintentionally speed up, they are said to rush. The similar term for unintentionally slowing down is drag. Both of these actions are undesirable, although dragging is usually worse, since it tends to suck the energy from a performance. Because of their negative connotation, neither rush nor drag (nor their equivalents in other languages) are often used as tempo indications in scores, Mahler being a notable exception: as part of a tempo indication he used schleppend ("dragging") in the first movement of his 1st symphony, for example.
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