Largo

Largo means "broad" or "wide" in Italian, and that is how it should feel: a slow tempo with plenty of space around every note. Metronome charts often place it at about 40 to 60 beats per minute, just above grave and in the same slow neighborhood as lento and adagio.

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Largo, lento and adagio

All three ask for a slow tempo, and the charts do not fully agree on their order. Most modern tables put largo slowest, then lento, then adagio. The words also differ in character: largo is broad and spacious, lento is simply slow, and adagio (literally "at ease") is relaxed. The diminutive larghetto, "a little largo", is a little less slow.

Largo in real music

Chopin's Prelude in E minor, Op. 28 No. 4, is marked Largo: a long, sighing melody over left-hand chords that change one note at a time. Our Prelude in E minor study looks at it bar by bar. The slow second movement of Dvořák's "New World" Symphony is another famous Largo.

Playing largo

• Count the eighth notes in your head, so long notes get their full length.
• Keep the line moving. Slow does not mean static: lean toward the high point of each phrase and relax after it.
• Connect the harmony. On the piano, the sustain pedal helps, changed cleanly with each new chord.

A common mistake is to let largo get slower and slower as the piece goes on. Check your tempo against a metronome at the start, in the middle and near the end.

Largo is the slowest band of the speedometer in Tempo & the Metronome and the first rung of the tempo ladder in Dynamics & Tempo Ladders; Match the terms: level 2 and the Musical terms & signs chart define it as very slow and broad.