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In the bassoon part of Al fato dàn legge in Mozart’s Così fan tutte — Act I, Scene IV, No. 7, there is this Imo sign:

Excerpt of “Al fat dàn legge”, showing “Imo” sign above the bassoon part.

Can anyone explain its meaning?

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    And to think that all this time I've been assuming that it meant in my opinion 🤔
    – Paul Sebesta
    Commented Jul 12 at 20:46

2 Answers 2

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The first character is upper-case I, or in fact Roman numeral "one." (I see that this is the character you used in asking the question, but on my device/browser it is virtually indistinguishable from lower-case l.)

It is an abbreviation for Italian primo, meaning "first." It means that the marked passage is to be played by the first bassoon only rather than by the second bassoon or by both bassoons.

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    Much obliged. The use of the colloquialism IMO (in my opinion) muddles things further!
    – Henry Cooper
    Commented Jul 11 at 9:25
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    @HenryCooper Imagine an editor marking some uncertain passage with IMO ...
    – Lazy
    Commented Jul 11 at 10:16
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    To use the common term: It is an ordinal indicator, just like 1st, 2nd, ...
    – Lazy
    Commented Jul 11 at 10:17
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    @Lazy I meant when trying to search the web for the meaning of the term
    – Henry Cooper
    Commented Jul 11 at 10:23
  • When you start to worry is when you see a similar script but with an h between the m and the o.
    – Lee Mosher
    Commented Jul 11 at 18:02
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Yes, it is primo, made up from I and mo. In this case, the part is to be played by the 1st instrument, the 2nd has a rest. The 1st usually plays the higher notes, as indicated by the tail direction (earlier on the sheet).Which in itself would be the clue, but far easier and neater to write the tails as in the piece shown.

On piano duets , where two players play together, there are designated parts, labelled Imo and 2do (1st and 2nd), or right part and left part of the piano.

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  • "2do", of course, abbreviates "secondo". Does one ever see in music "3zo", "4to", from "terzo", "quarto"?
    – Michael Lugo
    Commented Jul 12 at 14:31
  • @MichaelLugo that would first require an orchestration where those parts could exist. I've seen orchestral ensembles with dozens of string players, but I've never heard of a "third violinist".
    – Karl Knechtel
    Commented Jul 12 at 19:24
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    @KarlKnechtel but in the later romantic period, 3 or 4 winds were not unheard of. I recall having seen 4to in bookbinding, at least. But in music it's often just the o: Iº, IIº, IIIº or 1º, 2º, 3º.
    – phoog
    Commented Jul 12 at 21:06

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