Moderato means what it looks like: moderate, in the middle, neither fast nor slow. It sits directly between andante and allegro, and it is the tempo closest to a comfortable resting heart rate — which is a large part of why it feels like a neutral speed rather than a chosen one.
On its own it is less common than you would expect. Moderato does most of its work as a qualifier: allegro moderato is an allegro held back, andante moderato is a walk with the pace kept steady, allegretto moderato splits an already narrow difference. When it appears alone it is usually a composer declining to characterise the movement, which leaves the character entirely to the notes.
Pieces marked moderato
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 |
|---|---|
| Rachmaninoff — Piano Concerto No. 2, 1st movement | Moderato |
| Shostakovich — Symphony No. 5, 1st movement | Moderato |
Where moderato 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Adagio | 66–76 BPM | slow and stately |
| Andante | 76–108 BPM | at a walking pace |
| Moderato | 108–120 BPM | moderately |
| Allegretto | 112–120 BPM | moderately fast |
| Allegro moderato | 116–120 BPM | not quite allegro |
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. Moderato is a band 12 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.
Because moderato is mostly used as a qualifier, a bare Moderato often signals character rather than speed — both movements above are played considerably more freely than a 108 BPM click would suggest.
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 moderato runs 108–111 BPM. That band sits inside the 108–120 BPM above; it is the same marking, cut so that two names can never claim the same BPM.
Frequently asked questions
How fast is moderato?
Moderato is 108–120 BPM — a moderate speed, and almost exactly the middle of the tempo range.
What is moderato in BPM?
Moderato is usually given as 108–120 BPM. At 108 BPM — the middle of that band, and the tempo the metronome on this page opens at — one beat lasts 556 milliseconds. Because moderato is mostly used as a qualifier, a bare *Moderato* often signals character rather than speed — both movements above are played considerably more freely than a 108 BPM click would suggest.
Is moderato faster than allegretto?
Allegretto is the faster of the two: 112–120 BPM against 108–120 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.