Allegro Tempo in BPM
Allegro is commonly given as 120 to 168 BPM. The word means cheerful rather than fast, and that distinction is the whole reason the marking exists.
Timing is scheduled on the Web Audio clock, so the beat stays steady even while the page is busy. Tap the tempo button in time with a song to set the BPM by ear. Keyboard: space starts and stops, up and down arrows change the tempo by 1 (hold shift for 10), escape stops.
The metronome above starts at 144 BPM, the middle of the Allegro range. Drag the tempo anywhere between 120 and 168 to hear the whole range.
What Allegro means
Allegro translates as cheerful, lively. Allegro is the most common tempo marking in the classical repertoire, and it is worth knowing that its literal meaning is cheerful. A performer reading Allegro is being told about mood first and speed second, which is why an Allegro played fast but grimly still misses the instruction.
The lower boundary of the range is a useful landmark: 120 BPM is exactly two beats per second and is the default starting tempo in most music production software, which puts the beginning of the Allegro range at the tempo more modern music sits at than any other.
Why the BPM range is a convention, not a measurement
This is the part most tempo tables leave out. Italian tempo words were in general use for about a century before Maelzel's metronome made a beats-per-minute number practical at all, and the composers who wrote them never defined them numerically. Every published range, including the 120 to 168BPM given here, is somebody's later reconstruction, and different sources disagree by ten or twenty beats per minute at the edges.
Treat the number as a region and the word as the instruction. On a site that computes frequencies to two decimals it is worth being explicit about which figures are exact and which are conventional: the frequencies are exact, these ranges are not.
Where Allegro sits against the other markings
| Marking | Means | Commonly quoted BPM |
|---|---|---|
| Largo | broad, wide | 40 to 60 |
| Adagio | at ease, comfortable | 66 to 76 |
| Andante | walking | 76 to 108 |
| Moderato | moderate | 108 to 120 |
| Allegro | cheerful, lively | 120 to 168 |
| Vivace | lively, vivacious | 168 to 176 |
| Presto | quick | 168 to 200 |
| Prestissimo | as quick as possible | 200 to 240 |
Exact tempos inside the Allegro range
Each of these opens the metronome already running at that tempo, with its own notes on what the speed is used for.
Frequently asked questions
How many BPM is Allegro?
Commonly 120 to 168 BPM. It is the widest of the fast markings and covers most of the classical repertoire's quick movements.
Is 120 BPM Allegro?
It sits right at the bottom edge of the commonly quoted Allegro range, which is why 120 BPM is often described as the point where a tempo starts to feel lively rather than merely moderate.
Other tempo markings
More timing tools
Frequencies on this page are computed at build time from twelve tone equal temperament with A4 = 440 Hz, using the twelfth root of two (about 1.059463) per semitone. Nothing is typed in by hand. See the full method and sources. Maintained by FusionStudios. Last reviewed: .