Allegro

What it means

Allegro means cheerful, lively or merry. The Italian word describes mood rather than speed. More of this kind of thing is in the notation section.

It has come to indicate a fast tempo, and that is how it functions in practice, but the original meaning explains a great deal about how it should sound. Use the free metronome to check yourself on this.

The tempo range

Roughly 120 to 156 beats per minute, with sources varying.

It sits between allegretto below and vivace above.

Wide variation exists in practice. An allegro in a Baroque work is generally slower than an allegro in a Romantic symphony, and an allegro in cut time is counted differently from one in common time.

Why the character matters

An allegro should sound cheerful and lively, not merely fast.

That distinction shows in articulation and phrasing. A fast passage played evenly and mechanically is fast. A fast passage with lift, buoyancy and clear articulation is allegro.

Composers writing allegro wanted energy and brightness. Playing the notes at the right speed without that quality misses what the marking asks for.

The contrast is with presto, which means simply fast, and with vivace, which means lively but implies more urgency than cheerfulness.

What it asks for technically

Clean articulation at speed. The defining challenge. Fast passages must remain clear rather than blurring.

Appropriate bow stroke. Usually spiccato or sautille depending on tempo, or a short crisp detache. Choosing wrongly makes the passage unnecessarily hard.

Rhythmic precision. At speed, small inaccuracies accumulate quickly.

Left hand efficiency. Fingers lift and drop economically, without excess motion.

Relaxation. Fast playing invites tension, and tension slows the hands. The fastest playing is the most relaxed.

The tempo choice

An allegro's actual speed is an interpretive decision constrained by several things.

What the passage can bear. A tempo at which the passagework becomes unclear is too fast, regardless of what the marking suggests.

The acoustic. A reverberant hall blurs fast passages and generally demands a slightly slower tempo than a dry one.

The style. Baroque allegros are generally more moderate than Romantic ones.

The player. A tempo one player manages cleanly may be beyond another, and choosing a tempo that cannot be executed cleanly is a poor decision rather than an ambitious one.

The rushing problem

Fast movements tend to accelerate.

Energy accumulates, adrenaline rises in performance, and the tempo creeps. By the end of a movement a player may be substantially faster than they started.

This is near-universal in performance and it damages the music: passages that worked in practice become unclear, and the structure loses proportion.

The remedy is deliberate. Practise with a metronome regularly. Identify the passages where acceleration begins, usually the more energetic ones. Consciously hold back where the instinct is to push.

Common variants

Allegro moderato, moderately fast.

Allegro assai, very fast.

Allegro con brio, fast with vigour.

Allegro con fuoco, fast with fire.

Allegro ma non troppo, fast but not too much. Extremely common, and it means the composer wanted energy without a scramble.

Allegro agitato, fast and agitated.

Allegro vivace, fast and lively, at the upper end.

The modifier usually matters more than the base word, and students frequently read allegro and ignore what follows.

Where you meet it

Everywhere. Allegro is the most common tempo marking in the repertoire.

First movements of sonatas, symphonies and concertos carry it constantly. Final movements do too.

Students meet it in their earliest pieces and continue meeting it indefinitely.

The practice approach

Fast passages are learned slowly. This is universally agreed and universally resisted.

A passage practised at speed before it is secure is practised inaccurately, and the inaccuracy is reinforced.

The standard method: practise slowly enough to be perfectly accurate, then increase by small increments, dropping back whenever accuracy fails.

The tempo at which a passage is accurate is the tempo it should be practised at, regardless of what the marking says.

How it is taught

Early, as the standard fast marking.

The lesson that matters and takes longest: the character is cheerfulness and lift, not merely velocity. An allegro played fast and heavily is wrong.

Choosing the tempo honestly

The question that decides whether an allegro works.

At what tempo is every note clear? Play the hardest passage in the movement, not the easiest. That passage sets the tempo for the whole thing.

A player who picks a tempo from the easy opening and then hits the difficult passage has to either slow down or blur, and both are worse than having chosen a moderate tempo throughout.

Does it sound cheerful? If the tempo makes the playing sound effortful or grim, it is wrong, regardless of the metronome mark.

An allegro at 132 played cleanly and with lift sounds faster and better than the same allegro at 148 played approximately.

The acceleration problem in performance

Near-universal, and worth preparing for.

Adrenaline pushes tempo. A movement performed is typically faster than the same movement practised, sometimes substantially.

Two countermeasures.

Practise slightly above tempo, so the intended speed feels comfortable rather than at the limit.

Establish the tempo deliberately at the start rather than letting it emerge. Take a moment, feel the pulse, then begin. Movements that start too fast rarely recover.

Work on reading and notation where somebody can hear the difference. We run private and group violin lessons in Cumming, Sugar Hill and Milton. Call 470-789-2422 to talk it through, or book a no-commitment evaluation lesson.