Tempo primo

As Printed on a Score

Printed above the staff as Tempo I, Tempo primo, 1° Tempo or Tempo 1 where a movement’s opening tempo returns after one or more different tempos. It cancels every intervening tempo word at once. A reader looks back to the first tempo heading, not the last one — the difference from a tempo, which only undoes the latest change.

Abbreviations: Tempo I, Tempo I., Tempo 1, 1° Tempo

Also spelled: Primo tempo

How Composers Use It

Use Tempo primo (or Tempo I) when returning to the opening tempo after the music has passed through several different tempi. It is more specific than a tempo, which means "the tempo we were just in."

Example

Dvořák, Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95 (“From the New World”), fourth movement, flutes, m. 275: “Tempo 1” at ff, restoring the movement’s opening Allegro con fuoco.

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