A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Grave

GRAVE. One of the slow Tempos, indicating perhaps rather character than pace. As familiar instances may be given the opening movement of the Overture to the Messiah, the short Choruses in plain counterpoint in Israel in Egypt—'And Israel saw', 'He is my God', etc.; the two recitatives, 'As God the Lord', in Elijah; 'The nations are now the Lord's' in St. Paul; 'What ailed thee' in the 114th Psalm; the 'Rex tremendæ' in Mozart's Requiem; the Introduction to the Sonata Pathetique, and that to the Prison scene in Fidelio. In Elijah Mendelssohn marks it = 60, but in St. Paul = 66.

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