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Return to the tempo in force before a deviation (ritardando, accelerando, ritenuto, rubato, a fermata) — not necessarily the opening tempo, which Tempo primo restores.
Printed above the staff, in lower case, at the bar where the previous tempo resumes after a ritardando, ritenuto, accelerando, fermata or colla voce passage. It cancels the deviation at once, not gradually, and restores the tempo in force before the change — not the opening tempo, which is Tempo I. Combined forms are common: a tempo (meno mosso), a tempo ed accel.
Always mark a tempo after any tempo modification to tell performers exactly where the original tempo resumes. Forgetting this marking is one of the most common notation oversights — it leaves performers guessing when to return to tempo.
Throughout Brahms's chamber music — after his frequent ritardandos, Brahms carefully marks a tempo to restore the pulse.
A tempo is one of 1760 terms in the Gradus musical dictionary: the words, abbreviations and instrument names that appear in printed scores, plus the vocabulary composers use to talk about them.
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