IT allegro tempo core term Support my free tools
- Abbreviation
- allo.
- Tempo
- 84–144 BPM Click to play the tempo Sources agree on a fast, bright tempo but differ on the boundaries: other tables give 120–156 BPM, and 120 BPM is often cited as a single reference point. The oldest reference works confirm the character but give no number.
What the sources say
| Source | BPM |
|---|---|
| Dolmetsch Online (reconciled modern range) | 84–144 |
| Wikipedia, 'Tempo' article | 120–156 |
| Frans Absil tempo-indications table (single reference point) | 120 |
| Schmidt-Jones, Understanding Basic Music Theory (LibreTexts open textbook) | 120 |
How is allegro played?
Set a brisk, forward-moving pulse, normally faster than Moderato and Allegretto but short of Presto, then let metre, note values and qualifiers determine the exact gait. Treccani traces Allegro’s seventeenth-century emergence as a conventional fast and lively direction and notes that its implied speed increased toward the Romantic era and varies by composer. Modern charts often give roughly 120–156 BPM, but that band is only orientation: allegro con brio, allegro ma non troppo and allegro agitato all redirect the base character. Aim for animated propulsion rather than automatic brightness, panic or one fixed number.
How does allegro sound?
Bright, energetic and propulsive, with a sense of good spirits rather than urgency or panic.
In context
Allegro became one of the central Italian tempo words and, by formal convention, the name of the Classical sonata’s opening fast movement even when a score uses a different heading. Beethoven’s first extant metronome marks are on Op. 112 in December 1815, while later tables made numerical specification more systematic; the history confirms rather than erases Allegro’s older relative meaning. The “Moonlight” Sonata’s finale is actually marked Presto agitato, not Allegro, so it belongs only as a contrast showing how a different speed word and qualifier create a more turbulent world. Historical dictionaries independently attest allo. as a short form; because it can resemble ordinary text, context and the full word remain important.
A note from Daniel
As a composer writing today, I would use Allegro with some care. The word carries a character — cheerful, lively — that belongs to a particular period and style, and a player only reads that character into it when the style has already set up the expectation. In a new score by a composer nobody knows yet, Allegro really says no more than "fast". If the cheerfulness matters, it has to be written into the music itself, or stated in so many words.
Common mistakes
- Reading Allegro as a fixed metronome number, when historically the word described a character — lively, cheerful — rather than a precise speed.
- Placing Allegro over a new work and assuming players and listeners will hear the Classical cheerfulness in it; without the stylistic context, the word signals only tempo.
- Forgetting that the character weighs as much as the speed: fast without cheerfulness is a different music from fast with it.
Music theory and score context
See also
- Tempo — Wikipedia (Italian tempo markings)
- allegro — Wiktionary (etymology: Latin alacer, "cheerful")
- Glossary of music terminology — Wikipedia
- Metronome — Wikipedia (Maelzel; Beethoven's first metronome marks)
- Treccani — Allegro e allegretto
- Early Music (Oxford Academic) — Beethoven’s first metronome marks
- Beethoven-Haus Bonn — Piano Sonatas, Op. 27
- W. S. B. Mathews, Pronouncing Dictionary and Condensed Encyclopedia of Musical Terms (1895)