Largo (Italian for “broadly”) is a tempo that reshapes our perception of time. The music seems to halt, giving the listener room for reflection and feeling.
The most famous example is the Largo e mesto from Beethoven's Sonata No. 7 and Handel's aria “Ombra mai fu,” often simply called “Largo.” It is music for grand halls and for quiet evenings alone with oneself.
Largo is the slowest of the commonly used tempos, roughly 40–60 beats per minute; even broader markings are larghissimo and grave. A related marking is larghetto — a little more moving than largo. Performing in largo demands a special art: to sustain tension and the continuity of the phrase over very slow motion, so that the music does not “crumble” into separate notes.
