Largo BPM: how slow is largo?
Largo is a slow marking, and the pages we opened do not share one band. Wikipedia’s Tempo article, as it stood on 2026-10-13, lists 40–66. Metronomus lists 40–60. Arabesque Conservatory lists 40–60. A Lumen music-appreciation chapter lists 45–50. The clip below, a real Largo movement in common time, lands near 41 quarter notes per minute in the passage we cut.
Four readings, not one average
| Page | What it says about largo |
|---|---|
| Wikipedia, Tempo | 40–66. The same article puts lento at 40–60, larghetto at 44–66 and adagio at 44–66. |
| Metronomus | 40–60. Larghetto on that chart is only 60–66. Lento is absent. |
| Arabesque Conservatory | 40–60. Updated September 2, 2026. Its lento row is 45–60. It names Handel’s Xerxes as a largo example. |
| Lumen chapter | 45–50, with lento slower at 40–45 and larghetto faster at 50–55. Adagio there is 55–65. |
| Classical Music | Stephen Johnson, published June 10, 2016. Broadly, slowly. No BPM figure in the article. The famous Handel “Largo” was marked larghetto. |
Our Adagio page says adagio is commonly 66–76, from sources read on 2026-10-09 and 2026-10-10. That sentence stays on that page. Wikipedia’s current adagio band, 44–66, overlaps its largo band completely. Metronomus keeps them apart: largo ends at 60 and adagio starts at 66. Which neighbor largo touches depends on the chart you opened.
Lento and larghetto have their own comparisons. The full ladder is tempo markings.
One Largo movement, one measured passage
Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, second movement, is marked Largo. Wikipedia’s form section, read 2026-10-13, calls the movement Largo and writes the meter as common time. Quarters are the beat. The Commons file says Largo and credits Musopen. It does not name the players.
Forty-one sits inside Wikipedia’s 40–66 and inside the 40–60 rows. It sits under the Lumen chapter’s 45–50. The opening of this same file also locks near the mid-40s, but many later passages lock near 65–100, which is too fast to call the largo beat. This excerpt is the stretch from five minutes to five minutes and twenty seconds, where the slow lag holds. It is one passage, not the whole movement’s speed.
How the 41 was estimated
The full file was decoded first, then this 20-second stretch was cut from the decoded audio. An onset envelope was searched between 30 and 70 events per minute. The strongest lags were about 41.4, 41.1 and 41.7. A seek inside the original compressed file is not what this number uses. Tap a passage you care about on Tap Tempo.
File page: Antonin Dvorak symphony no. 9, ii. largo. Music public domain (PD-old-100). Recording public domain, author Musopen, permission ticket 2008012110017088. Movement facts: Symphony No. 9 (Dvořák).
Largo BPM: quick answers
What BPM is largo?
The pages above say 40–66, 40–60 or 45–50. The Dvořák passage we measured sits near 41 quarter notes per minute. A number printed on your score replaces all of those.
Is largo slower than adagio?
Often, and not on every chart. Metronomus puts a gap between them. Wikipedia’s current article overlaps them. Our Adagio page’s 66–76 starts where some largo rows end.
Is Handel’s “Largo” marked largo?
Classical Music says the famous aria from Xerxes was marked larghetto. The larghetto page follows that warning. Do not rename the aria to match a nickname.
Why is there only one clip?
One movement whose score marking and license we could both verify. A second file we looked at did not clear the license check, so it is not here.
What this page will not smooth over
- The four bands stay separate. Midpoint of 40 and 66 is not a fifth source.
- Forty-one describes one passage of one Musopen recording. Other minutes of that file lock onto a faster lag.
- Rossini’s “Largo al factotum” is a title, and Classical Music says it is not a slow tempo. A title is not a metronome mark.