Tempo primo

Tempo primo , usually abbreviated to Tempo I ° in written music , is a performance instruction that requires the performer to return to the very first tempo of a work or movement .

If, for example, a quieter middle section (e.g. “Poco meno, quasi Andante” ) is inserted into a fast movement called “Allegro con moto ma non troppo presto” and then you want to return to the Allegro, the composer saves himself considerable paperwork if he only writes “Tempo I °” instead of the full tempo designation . In the scores of German-speaking composers one can often find terms such as first measure of time or return to the tempo of the beginning .

Devastating the confusion of the term can be called a tempo be the sometimes succumb great master: In the third symphony by Anton Bruckner , the slow movement (has Adagio ) a slightly faster middle section ( Andante quasi Allegretto ), in which a ritardando with " Tempo I ° ” instead of “ a tempo ” , which can lead an overly precise conductor to play the rest of the middle section in the first adagio tempo.