Quasi andante

As Printed on a Score

Printed above the staff as a heading or after another tempo word — Adagio quasi andante — where it nudges the pace toward a walk. It remains in force until the next tempo word.

How Composers Use It

Almost andante: a gentle, walking-like pace slightly short of a true Andante, or a slow tempo nudged toward motion. Beethoven’s “Adagio quasi un poco andante” in the String Quartet Op. 131 shows the idiom: quasi lets a composer sit between two named tempos. Use it when neither word alone is right, and expect performers to read it flexibly; a metronome mark fixes the point.

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