The Short

TEMPO TERMS 343
A. F. C. Kollmann considered ‘grave’ to signify a kind of alla breve in reverse, explaining that whereas in alla breve
every note should be ‘as fast again as otherwise’, when music is marked ‘grave’ one should play ‘every note as slow
again as otherwise’; 635 and he went on to observe that ‘grave’ is used with 4/4 as a substitute for 4/2, which is difficult
to read, and that in that case every crotchet ‘should be expressed slow and heavy like a minim’. 636 Mozart's and
Kollmann's descriptions should alert us once again to the very definite notions that obtained in the late eighteenth and
early nineteenth centuries about the distinct performance styles appropriate to different types of pieces, which could be
indicated by metre, by the note values employed, the choice of such terms as ‘grave’, and so on. 637 Of authors who
attributed to ‘grave’ adefinite tempo relationship to other terms, Crotch, Dibdin, Hummel, and Czerny were among
those who regarded it as indicating a slower tempo than that implied by ‘largo’and ‘adagio’. Some of the writers who
regarded ‘adagio’ as indicating a slower tempo than ‘largo’, for instance Vogler, Knecht, and Clementi, placed
‘grave’between them; Hüllmandel listed them, in ascending order, ‘largo’, ‘grave’, ‘adagio’, 638 as, much later, did
Mendel; 639 and Dommer gave the order ‘largo’, ‘grave’, ‘lento’, ‘adagio’. 640
The significance of ‘lento’ was equally unclear. Some eighteenth-century writers, such as Quantz, Löhlein, and E.
Miller, seem to have regarded it as indicating a very slow tempo; many failed to include it in their lists, while others
such as Crotch and Campagnoli saw it as meaning only moderately slow.A few nineteenth-century composers used it
largely as a qualification to other terms (e.g. ‘adagio non lento’), but it is not always quite certain whether they always
considered it to mean ‘slow’ in the general sense or whether, unlikely as it seems, they intended to modify the main
term in the direction of another term that was seen as having a definite relationship to it. 641
The relatively small number of examples makes it difficult to determine the usages of major composers with any
degree of confidence. Isidor Saslovsuggests, on the basis of Die sieben letzte Worte, that Haydn regarded ‘largo’, ‘lento’,
‘grave’, and ‘adagio’ as signifying progressively faster tempo terms. 642 This does not seem, however, to have been the
view of Haydn's contemporary Crotch, for in 1800 he gave the following tempos (in pendulum lengths, converted here
to the nearest metronome mark) for movements from Die sieben letzte Worte: no.4, Largo 3/4, ? = 120, no. 5, Adagio ?, ?
= 126, no. 6, Lento ?, ? = 152. 643 The slower tempo for the Largo is to some extent counteracted by a greater number
635
Essay, 72.
636
Ibid. 74.
637
See Ch. 16, ‘Heavy and Light Performance Style’.
638
Principles of Music, 8.
639
Mendel and Reissmann, Musikalisches Conversations-Lexikon, art. ‘Tempo’.
640
Musikalisches Lexicon, art. ‘Tempobezeichnungen’.
641
See below for Berlioz's curious use of ‘adagio un poco lento’ and ‘andante un poco lento’.
642
‘Tempos in the String Quartets of Joseph Haydn’ dissertation (Indiana University, 1969), 57–8.
643 ‘Remarks’.