The arrangement of the various parts should be balanced, usually in contrasting ways (the adagio movement coming between two faster movements, for example).
It all builds to a glorious conclusion, an eloquent adagio in which serene and prayerful moods alternate with passages of ecstatic release.
Separate tempo indications, arising first in the 17th century, were verbally expressed; for example, adagio, largo, presto.
Meanwhile, the popularity of Caribbean and South American songs and ensembles and the development of Afro-Cuban jazz (early Latin jazz) supported a Latin dance craze, bringing renewed popularity in the 1930s to exhibition teams performing rumba, acrobatic adagio, and slow-dance styles.
In the last two symphonies the adagio movements occur after the scherzos rather than before.
The Symphony No. 45 (Farewell), with its adagio (slow) coda, displays Haydn's wit and is one of the best of his symphonies from the decade before 1780.
(The adagio movement of a Bruckner symphony can be a profoundly emotional 30 minutes long).
The scherzo, with all its propulsive energy, is placed as the second movement, rather than the customary third, and the third movement is a mostly restful, almost prayerful adagio.
The 17th century saw the introduction of the Italian terms that have been in use ever since, often imprecise in meaning, but running roughly hierarchically from slow to fast as follows: adagissimo, adagio, lento, andante, andantino, allegretto, allegro, presto, prestissimo.
A classical production is divided into three sections: the opening pas de deux (dance for two), or adagio; variations or individual performances by the partners, first by the male and then by the female; and the final pas de deux, or coda.
The adagio became a finely-judged duet between piano and orchestra, and if his playing in the rumbustious finale was a trifle too refined for its own good in this vast space, he suggested by his choice of encore - Liszt's arrangement of Schumann's love-song 'Widmung' - that the recital hall was his preferred habitat.
