A Time You May Embrace Trivia Quiz

If you really need slow music, Larghissimo is the way to go. This very rare marking denotes a tempo slower than 24 beats per minute - a quarter note takes two and a half seconds or longer. The second movement of Leonard Slatkin's "American Muse" symphony is one of the few examples using this tempo

Experimental composer John Cage took this to the extreme in his ORGAN²/ASLSP ("as slow as possible) piece. Usually, the eight pages of score are performed in about one hour, but recorded performances range up to 24 hours. However, in Halberstadt, Germany, the piece has been playing since 2001 on a custom-built organ and the performance is nowhere close to ending: if the building still exists by then, the last note will end in the year 2640!

Denoting a speed of 24 to 40 beats per minute, Grave (pronounced roughly as grah-vey) is also a rare tempo marking.

One of the best known pieces using this marking is the introduction of the first movement of Beethoven's "Sonata Pathétique" for piano, lasting approximately 90 seconds before the main theme is introduced at a much faster pace. During this introduction, the pianist however encounters some 1/128 notes (that's five connecting bars), so it is still not easy to play.

Unlike the first two listed tempo markings, Largo is quite common. It designates a range from approximately 40 to 66 beats per minute.

Many will probably think of "Handel's Largo" first when hearing this term, although that is not the actual name of the piece: it was an aria from his opera "Xerxes", to be sung by a countertenor or castrato. Today, the composition is almost exclusively played as an instrumental piece for strings.

Adagio is even more commonly used than Largo and mostly overlaps the same range, with a slightly higher lower bound but capping about at the same speed. It is a common tempo for the slow (often second) movements of symphonies.

Beethoven used it for the second movement of both his third ("Eroica") and fourth symphonies as well as the third movement of his ninth symphony which swaps the traditional roles of the second and third movement, the Scherzo coming before the slow movement.

Largo and Adagio are also the most common tempo designations for funeral marches.

Whenever you encounter an "-etto" diminuitive in a tempo marking, this means to play more towards a medium (Moderato) tempo than the base. As such, a slow tempo such as Adagio is sped up, but a faster tempo is slowed down. Adagietto sits between Adagio and Andante.

One prominent example of this tempo is the fourth (of five) movements in Gustav Mahler's fifth symphony. Adagietto pieces can range from 46 to 80 beats per minute.

Andante is probably one of the two most common tempi in classical music. Many slow movements use this range, which is relatively wide open in terms of metronome speeds: it can be as slow as 56 beats per minute and as fast as 100.

The term implies to play at a walking pace. One of the most famous pieces using this notation is the second movement of Mozart's piano concerto no. 21, which is probably performed on its own more often than as the complete concerto.

Like "-etto", "-ino" is another diminuitive, so again, Andantino is slightly faster than Andante, although it effectively overlaps with the upper range of the latter.

This is not a particularly common tempo, with the same range more often expressed as "Andante con moto", but one famous example is Frederic Chopin's "Spring" waltz for piano.

In older music, Andantino sometimes means to actually play slower than Andante.

Moderato is the middle of the tempo scale, indicating a speed of 108 to 120 beats per minute. On its own, being neither slow nor fast, it is an uncommon tempo marking. Tchaikovsky's fourth symphony has its opening movement set at this pace, making powerful use of this "neither slow nor fast" effect to create a quite unique flow.

More commonly than on its own, Moderato occurs as a modifier to Andante and Allegro, again signifying a deviation towards the middle of the scale, i.e. Andante moderato is slightly sped up while Allegro moderato is at the lower edge of the Allegro range.

A very significant portion of pop and rock songs also fall into the Moderato range, which makes for a good speed to dance to at discos and clubs.

Allegretto is just a touch faster than Moderato, often indicating a softer, often more playful piece than the alternative of Allegro moderato which roughly encompasses the same tempo range.

A somewhat unusual usage of the tempo occurs in the popular second movement of Beethoven's 7th symphony. While technically on the fast side of the scale, this is actually the slowest movement in the symphony, with the other three all significantly faster. Thus, this symphony as well as his 8th (which also has an Allegretto as the second movement) have no real slow movements.

Allegro is the fast counterpart to Andante, being the default for most fast movements - opening movements and finales of symphonies, concertos and sonatas. The range of this tempo is relatively wide, from about 120 to 156 beats per minute, and quite often the designation is given with a modifier, such as "Poco Allegro" (slower) or "Allegro Vivace" (faster) to more closely specify the exact speed.

Mozart's Serenade No. 13 for Strings, better known as "a little night music" features an unmodified Allegro tempo on both the first and final movement.

The assai modifier is an augmentation, similar to molto, thus Allegro assai is faster than a standard Allegro. It indicates the same range as Allegro Vivace - the upper reaches of Allegro, but not reaching into Vivace territory.

While the "Ode to Joy" finale of Beethoven's 9th symphony uses a variety of fast tempi, the first presentation of the theme is marked as Allegro assai. The brilliant finale of Mozart's symphony No. 40 also uses this tempo.

Things are definitely speeding up now. Ranging from 156 to 176 beats per minute, Vivace is a significant step up from Allegro. Many scherzos are written for this tempo range, such as the second movement of Beethoven's 9th symphony.

On its own, Vivace is a relatively rare designation. It is more often used in combination with Allegro, which slightly tones down the speed but emphasizes the lively, happy aspect of the term.

Almost at the top of the scale is Presto, which is a speed of 168 to 200 beats per minute. Beethoven - a frequent user of fast tempo - used it in several symphonies, but a quite different and illustrative example is from Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons": The third and final movement of the summer section is set as Presto.

Max Reger's "Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart" uses a marking of "Quasi presto" in the fifth variation, but there is hardly a consistent speed in that particular segment, which also features several slow passages. In Johannes Brahms' "St. Anthony Variations", the 8th variation is also a Presto, leading up to the majestic Andante finale.

We've started on a superlative, we'll end on a superlative: Prestissimo is an augmentation of Presto and thus even faster. Clocking at a speed of over 200 beats per minute, this speed is a challenge to any orchestra or soloist.

The "-issimo" suffix is almost exclusively used for the extreme reaches of the tempo scale, although Vivacissimo or Allegrissimo did (rarely) get used.

As would be expected from a composer well-known for being fast and furious, Beethoven is one of the few to have marked entire movements as Prestissimo. The finale of his piano sonata no. 1 uses this breakneck speed. As a comparison, the furious "Flight of the Bumblebee" by Rimsky-Korsakov is merely a fast Vivace, but since it uses a flurry of sixteenth notes, the musicians need to master playing twelve notes per second to play the piece at the intended tempo (few can). So it's not always only the tempo marking that ultimately determines what speed you hear.