the.com/largo
The tempo marking that dares an orchestra to make slowness feel urgent.
means A musical direction meaning broad and slow — one of the slowest tempos in classical music, stately rather than draggy.
from Straight from Italian 'largo,' meaning 'broad' or 'wide,' which traces back to Latin 'largus' (abundant, copious — the same root that gives English 'large' and 'largesse'). Italian composers built their whole tempo vocabulary from everyday adjectives, so 'largo' doesn't technically mean 'slow' at all — it means 'wide,' describing a broad, spacious feel that just happens to require a slow pulse to pull off.
- meaning
- Italian for broad or wide
- speed
- roughly 40-60 beats per minute
- famous use
- Handel's so-called Largo is actually marked Larghetto
- vibe
- slower than adagio, grander than grave