Allegro does not literally mean fast. It means cheerful, and it acquired its speed by association: music with that character is usually quick. Which is exactly why the range is 48 BPM wide, the widest on this page — the word is describing a mood, and the mood is compatible with a lot of tempos.
The qualifiers are where the real instruction lives, and an allegro is much more often qualified than not. Allegro con brio is with fire; allegro ma non troppo, fast but not too much; allegro assai, very fast; allegro vivace, fast and lively; allegro agitato, fast and unsettled. If a movement is marked plain Allegro with nothing after it, the middle of the range — around 132 — is a reasonable place to start.
It is also the default first-movement marking of the entire classical era, which means most of the symphonies and sonatas anyone can hum begin here.
Pieces marked allegro
The middle column is the marking exactly as it is printed, qualifiers and all — which is usually more instructive than the word on its own.
| Piece | Marked |
|---|---|
| Mozart — Eine kleine Nachtmusik, K. 525, 1st movement | Allegro |
| Beethoven — Symphony No. 5, 1st movement | Allegro con brio |
| Vivaldi — “Spring”, The Four Seasons, 1st movement | Allegro |
Where allegro sits
The markings on either side, with the ranges the reference tables give them. They overlap, and that is not an error in the table — it is what the words are like.
| Marking | BPM | Character |
|---|---|---|
| Allegretto | 112–120 BPM | moderately fast |
| Allegro moderato | 116–120 BPM | not quite allegro |
| Allegro | 120–168 BPM | fast and bright |
| Vivace | 168–176 BPM | lively and fast |
| Presto | 168–200 BPM | very fast |
The full ladder, from larghissimo to prestissimo, is on the index page.
How much to trust the number
Three things are true of every range on this site, and of every tempo table anywhere else:
- They are ranges, not values. Allegro is a band 48 BPM wide, and both ends of it are correct.
- They varied by era. The words are centuries older than the metronome — Maelzel patented his in 1815, long after composers were writing adagio at the top of a page — so the numbers were fitted to the vocabulary afterwards, by people who disagreed. A Baroque andante and a Romantic andante are not the same speed, and neither is wrong.
- A metronome mark on the score always wins. If the music says ♩ = 96, that is the tempo, and the Italian word above it is telling you about character rather than speed. Set the number, ignore the table.
A 48-BPM range means the word alone cannot settle a tempo. Read the qualifier, and read the note values: an allegro full of sixteenth notes is a slower allegro than one in quarters.
One housekeeping note about this site specifically. The metronome’s live readout has to print exactly one marking for any tempo, so it uses a narrower, non-overlapping ladder in which allegro runs 120–167 BPM. That band sits inside the 120–168 BPM above; it is the same marking, cut so that two names can never claim the same BPM.
Frequently asked questions
How fast is allegro?
Allegro is 120–168 BPM — fast and bright, and by a distance the most common tempo marking in music.
What is allegro in BPM?
Allegro is usually given as 120–168 BPM. At 132 BPM — the middle of that band, and the tempo the metronome on this page opens at — one beat lasts 455 milliseconds. A 48-BPM range means the word alone cannot settle a tempo. Read the qualifier, and read the note values: an allegro full of sixteenth notes is a slower allegro than one in quarters.
Is allegro faster than vivace?
Vivace is the faster of the two: 168–176 BPM against 120–168 BPM. The two ranges overlap in most published tables, which is normal — these are descriptions of character that were fitted to numbers afterwards, so neighbouring markings shade into each other rather than meeting at a line.