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Moderately quick and calm.
Printed above the first system as a heading for a song or movement, lasting until the next tempo word. In Lieder it covers voice and piano together, usually with no separate marking in the accompaniment.
A moving but settled pace: the music should lilt without urgency, its phrases unhurried even though the pulse is light. It suits gentle springtime and pastoral songs and accompaniments of even, flowing figures. Tranquillo also warns against dynamic pressing, so keep crescendos modest. Choose it over Allegretto grazioso when calm matters more than elegance, and over Andante when you still want the step to feel light.
Mendelssohn, 6 Gesänge, Op. 86, “Altdeutsches Frühlingslied”, voice, m. 1: “Allegretto tranquillo”.
Allegretto tranquillo is one of 1755 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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