Waltz, Op. 39 No. 15 (theme, arranged for beginners)

Learn this piece

Composer

Johannes Brahms (Waltz in A-flat major, Op. 39 No. 15)

Arrangement

Musicanyya practice material

Level

Beginner

Key

G major

Metre

3/4

Tempo

96 BPM

Length

16 bars, about 1 minute

Hands

both

Trains

Brahms's best-known waltz in 3/4: a gentle tune over left-hand chords of G, C and D, most of them held, four of them broken into a rising arpeggio. Lean on beat 1 and keep beats 2 and 3 light; bar 8 ends on a question, bar 16 answers it.

How to practise it

• Bars 1, 2 and 4 open with a dotted quarter on beat 1 and then three light eighths; bar 3 is three even quarters. Loop bars 1-4 at 60 BPM and listen for a full first beat and gentler beats 2 and 3.
• Bars 5-8 sit higher, around E and D, and bar 7 has the piece's only accidental, a C-sharp. Loop bars 5-8 slowly until bar 7 flows into bar 8.
• In bars 3, 7, 11 and 15 the left hand plays its chord as three rising quarter notes instead of holding it. Try the left hand alone in these bars so the change stays smooth.

Where this score came from

Arrangement for this app (CC0)

Melody from Ed. R. Joseffy (https://www.mutopiaproject.org/cgibin/piece-info.cgi?id=794), public domain; left-hand chords our own (CC0)

Changes from the source: The left-hand arpeggios and block chords are our own (CC0). Transposed from A-flat major to G major. The tempo, quarter = 96, is ours: the source prints none (its MIDI file plays 116). The tune only, without Brahms's chords in the right hand and his bass. The source's bars 1-8 and 23-30; the bars between are left out. Bars 3 and 11: the upper-neighbour figure C-D-C (an eighth and two sixteenths) becomes one C, a quarter note. Bar 16: the tune ends on G, the key note, held for the whole bar; Brahms goes on to his next phrase here.

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