Tempo Markings BPM Chart: Largo to Presto

I wanted one chart a player could use at the music stand, so I read several of the pages that rank for this search and compared their numbers. The first thing that stood out is that none of them agree completely, and few of them say so. This post gives you the chart, the reason the numbers move, what the small modifier words change, and how to get from an Italian word on the page to a click you can hear.

What BPM is each tempo marking?

The table below puts two lists next to each other. Column A is the chart from Arabesque Conservatory's guide to types of tempo. Column B is the list in the Wikipedia article on tempo, which describes its own figures as very rough approximations for 4/4 time. A dash means that source does not list the word. The last two columns are mine: a number to start at, and a piece that carries the marking in its score.

Marking	Meaning	A: Arabesque	B: Wikipedia	Start at	Found in
Grave	very slow, solemn	not listed	24 to 40	35	Opening of Beethoven's Pathétique sonata
Largo	broad	40 to 60	40 to 66	50	Slow movement of Dvořák's New World symphony
Lento	slow	45 to 60	40 to 60	52	Third movement of Chopin's second piano sonata
Larghetto	a little less broad than largo	not listed	44 to 66	55	Slow movement of Beethoven's second symphony
Adagio	slow, at ease	66 to 76	44 to 66	66	Slow movement of Beethoven's Pathétique sonata (Adagio cantabile)
Andante	walking pace	76 to 108	56 to 108	92	Slow movement of Haydn's Surprise symphony
Moderato	moderate	108 to 120	108 to 120	114	Common in teaching pieces and method books
Allegretto	a little lively	112 to 124	112 to 120	116	Second movement of Beethoven's seventh symphony
Allegro	quick, bright	120 to 156	120 to 156	138	First movement of Mozart's Eine kleine Nachtmusik
Vivace	lively	156 to 176	156 to 176	166	Opening Vivace of Beethoven's seventh symphony
Presto	very fast	168 to 200	168 to 200	184	Third movement of Beethoven's Moonlight sonata
Prestissimo	as fast as possible	over 200	200 and over	200	Closing pages of Beethoven's Waldstein sonata

A few things are worth reading off this table before you rely on it.

The fast end is close. Allegro, vivace and presto match between the two lists. The disagreement is in the slow and middle end, where adagio sits at 66 to 76 in one list and 44 to 66 in the other. The two ranges only touch at 66. The same is true of andante, which one list starts at 76 and the other at 56. If your music says adagio, the honest summary is "somewhere between the low 40s and the mid 70s, with a lot of it depending on the piece."

The ranges also overlap inside each list. In column A, largo and lento share 45 to 60, moderato ends where allegretto is already running, and vivace and presto share 168 to 176. That overlap is a feature of the vocabulary, not an error in the chart.

The "start at" column is where I begin when I need a number and nothing else to go on. For most words it is near the middle of the range where the two sources agree, rounded to a value that is easy to tap. It is my working default, not a published standard.

Why do tempo charts disagree?

Because the words came first. The Italian terms were in use for roughly two centuries before the metronome existed, and they described mood and manner. Andante is a walking pace and allegro is cheerful. Neither word carried a number. According to Wikipedia's tempo article, tempo began to be expressed in beats per minute after Johann Nepomuk Maelzel's metronome in the early nineteenth century, and Beethoven was among the first composers to publish metronome marks, for his first eight symphonies in the 1810s. That same article notes that some of those marks are now thought to be implausibly fast.

A modern chart is an attempt to retrofit numbers onto words, and every author makes slightly different choices about which repertoire to calibrate against. Meanings also move. The same article says allegretto was once slightly faster than andante but now often sits just below allegro.

The Dolmetsch Online page on tempo shows how wide the spread can be when it lists figures from several authors. It gives adagio as 58 to 97 BPM, lento as 52 to 108 and moderato as 66 to 126. It also says that tempo words and metronome marks are both guides and not fixed rules, that verbal markings suggest mood more than speed, that early metronomes were unreliable, and that editors sometimes added marks that a composer never wrote. If you are looking for a single true number for andante, it does not exist.

Three more reasons the charts drift apart:

• The beat is not always a quarter note. A chart that says allegro is 120 to 156 assumes the beat is a quarter note, which suits 4/4. In 6/8 you might feel two beats per bar, each a dotted quarter, and "allegro" then describes a much slower count of clicks. A metronome mark is only meaningful with a note value attached, such as quarter note = 120.
• Character changes the number. A heavy, marching allegro and a light, dancing one can sit 20 BPM apart and both be right.
• Era and instrument matter. A fast passage on a keyboard and the same marking for a choir with a large hall behind it do not want the same pace.

What do molto, meno and poco change?

These small words adjust a tempo marking by degree. They do not come with their own BPM values in the sources I read, so any number you attach to them is a judgement call. What they tell you is direction and amount.

Word	Means	Effect on the marking	Example
molto	very	pushes it further toward its extreme	molto allegro: faster than allegro
assai	very much	same job as molto	allegro assai
poco	a little	softens the instruction	poco allegro, or poco a poco for "little by little"
meno	less	reduces whatever follows	meno mosso: less movement, so slower
più	more	increases whatever follows	più mosso: more movement, so faster
con moto	with motion	asks for some forward drive	andante con moto

The Dolmetsch page adds that the endings -etto and -ino soften a word (larghetto is less broad than largo, andantino a little different from andante) and -issimo pushes it to an extreme (prestissimo, larghissimo). Wikipedia's list places molto allegro and allegro vivace at 124 to 156, which overlaps with plain allegro. In practice, molto allegro is not a different speed band so much as a nudge: play it at the quick end of your allegro range.

A useful habit is to treat a modifier as a movement of 5 to 10 BPM within the neighbourhood, not as a jump to a new category. That figure is my rule of thumb, not something the sources state.

What do tempo-change markings mean?

Tempo markings tell you where to start. A second family of words tells you what to do next. These are the ones you will meet most often, with meanings drawn from the Wikipedia and Dolmetsch pages.

Marking	Abbreviation	What it asks
accelerando	accel.	gradually speed up
ritardando	rit.	gradually slow down
rallentando	rall.	gradually slow down, used almost the same way as ritardando
ritenuto	riten.	hold back, sometimes a sudden slowing
allargando	allarg.	slow down, often broadening and growing louder
stringendo	string.	press forward, speeding up
rubato		bend the time for expression while the overall tempo stays put
a tempo		return to the previous speed
tempo primo	Tempo I	return to the opening speed
l'istesso tempo		keep the same beat speed even though the meter changed

Two of these cause most of the confusion. First, rubato is not a speed change. Notes borrow and repay time inside a phrase while the underlying pulse continues. The Dolmetsch page describes it as a freer rhythmic shape with the overall tempo unchanged. Second, a tempo means "go back to the speed you had before the change", while tempo primo means "go back to the very beginning speed", which can be different if there have been several changes since.

The practical point for anyone using a metronome: a click cannot follow an accelerando or a rubato. You set it for the base tempo, and the marked changes are something you add by ear. That is also why many players practise the passage with the click first, then turn it off and shape it.

How should you practise a piece marked presto?

Not at presto. A fast marking is a destination, and the speed you can play cleanly today is almost always lower. The method is the same one in metronome practice: choosing a tempo to learn at: find the fastest tempo at which you can play the passage cleanly, work there until it is dull, then raise the click in small steps.

Applied to a presto, that looks like this:

1. Look up the range for the word, so you know the target. For presto that is the high 160s to 200 in both lists above.
2. Start well under it. If your clean tempo for the hard bar is 100, spend your first sessions at 100, not at 184.
3. Subdivide when the beat is too fast to feel. At a very quick tempo, set the click to half the number and count in two, so each click is one bar or one half bar.
4. Raise it in steps of 2 to 4 BPM and drop back at the first mistake.
5. Time your full run-throughs with a stopwatch so you can see whether a whole movement really sits where you think it does.

If you reach the ceiling of the range and the music still does not feel like presto, check the character before the number. Lightness and clarity usually matter more than the last few BPM.

How do you set a metronome from an Italian marking?

Three steps, thirty seconds.

1. Read the word and the time signature. Find the beat the piece is counted in. If it is 4/4, the click is a quarter note. If it is a quick 6/8, you will usually count two dotted-quarter beats per bar.
2. Pick the start value from the table. Andante, for example, starts around 92. Moderato starts around 114.
3. Tap it in, then adjust by feel. Play eight bars. If it feels like trudging, move up 4 to 6 BPM. If you are scrambling, move down by the same amount.

The metronome on this site runs from 30 to 260 BPM and accents the first beat of each bar, with 2, 3, 4 or 6 beats per bar. Every range in the chart above, from grave to prestissimo, fits inside that span. It is free, with no app and no account.

If the score has a metronome mark, such as quarter note = 96, use that number as the starting point and treat the Italian word as a sanity check. If the number and the word disagree, the Dolmetsch page is a useful reminder that marks can be unreliable and that the composer's own mark sometimes only applies to the opening bars.

Frequently asked questions

What BPM is andante?

Roughly 76 to 108 BPM in the chart from Arabesque Conservatory, and 56 to 108 in the Wikipedia list. The overlap is the upper part, so a start of about 92 is safe. The word means walking pace, so a steady, unhurried count in the 80s or 90s is a good place to begin.

Is allegro faster than vivace?

No. Vivace is faster than allegro. In both lists above, allegro is about 120 to 156 BPM and vivace is about 156 to 176. They meet at 156. Presto is faster still, at about 168 to 200.

What tempo is moderato?

About 108 to 120 BPM in both lists, which makes it one of the narrowest ranges in the chart. It means a moderate speed, and 114 is a reasonable start. The Dolmetsch page gives a much wider span, 66 to 126, which is a good reminder that moderato depends heavily on who is writing the chart.

What does a tempo mean in music?

It means "return to the previous speed". It appears after a ritardando, a rubato passage or any other tempo change, and cancels the effect. It is different from tempo primo, which returns to the speed at the very beginning of the piece.

Find your marking, then hear it

Look up the word in the chart, take the number in the "start at" column, and tap it into the metronome. Play a few bars and trust your ear over the table. If you are logging how long a full movement takes at the new speed, the stopwatch is one click away. Every BPM range on this page is an approximate convention that varies by source, and your own score and your own ears have the last word.