Lento is the plainest tempo word in the vocabulary: it means slow and nothing else. Every other marking at this speed carries a character with it — largo asks for breadth, adagio for ease, grave for solemnity — and lento asks only that you play slowly and decide the rest yourself.
That is why it turns up so often in Chopin, and in Romantic piano music generally: it is the marking to use when the character is already obvious from the notes and the composer only needs to set a speed. Sources put it anywhere from 40 to 60 BPM, and some restrict it to 45–60; either way it sits alongside largo rather than apart from it.
Because it shares its band with largo, this site’s metronome names that band Largo — a live readout can only show one word at a time. It is the same tempo either way.
Pieces marked lento
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 |
|---|---|
| Chopin — Prelude Op. 28 No. 2 in A minor | Lento |
| Chopin — Nocturne Op. 48 No. 1 in C minor | Lento |
Where lento 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Grave | 20–40 BPM | slow and solemn |
| Largo | 40–60 BPM | broadly |
| Lento | 40–60 BPM | broadly |
| Larghetto | 60–66 BPM | rather broadly |
| Adagio | 66–76 BPM | slow and stately |
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. Lento is a band 20 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.
Published ranges for lento disagree more than for most markings — 40–60 is the common figure, 45–60 is also standard, and a few sources put it much faster. When a score gives a metronome mark, that mark is the answer.
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 largo runs 41–60 BPM. That band sits inside the 40–60 BPM above; it is the same marking, cut so that two names can never claim the same BPM.
Frequently asked questions
How fast is lento?
Lento is 40–60 BPM — slow, and, unlike most markings, that is the entire instruction.
What is lento in BPM?
Lento is usually given as 40–60 BPM. At 52 BPM — the middle of that band, and the tempo the metronome on this page opens at — one beat lasts 1154 milliseconds. Published ranges for lento disagree more than for most markings — 40–60 is the common figure, 45–60 is also standard, and a few sources put it much faster. When a score gives a metronome mark, that mark is the answer.
Is lento faster than larghetto?
Larghetto is the faster of the two: 60–66 BPM against 40–60 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.