La Pastorale (25 Etudes faciles, Op. 100, No. 3)

Learn this piece

Composer

Johann Friedrich Franz Burgmüller

Level

Intermediate

Key

G major

Metre

6/8

Tempo

100 BPM

Length

29 bars, about 1 minute

Hands

both

Trains

A shepherd's song in 6/8 in G major, Andantino: a singing right-hand melody in dotted quarters and eighths, with grace notes (bars 3, 5, 7, 19, 21, 26-27), over soft repeated eighth-note chords in the left hand. In the middle part the left hand holds a chord while it repeats a D, and in bars 9-10 and 15-18 it moves up into the treble clef; the piece ends on a G major arpeggio climbing to G6.

How to practise it

• Keep the left-hand chords soft and even so the right-hand tune sings above them. Play the grace notes in bars 3, 5 and 7 quick and light, as part of the melody.
• In bars 11-14 the left hand holds the lower notes for the whole bar while it repeats the D above. Practise the left hand alone until the held notes keep sounding.
• In bars 15-18 the left hand moves up into the treble clef, and its B♭s in bar 15 are answered by the right hand's E♭s in bar 16. Loop these bars at 60 BPM and read both clefs first.
• Bar 28 climbs a staccato G major arpeggio to the high G in bar 29 while it gets softer and slower. Keep each note short and land the last G pp.

Where this score came from

Licence: Public domain

https://www.mutopiaproject.org/cgibin/piece-info.cgi?id=218

Credit: Typeset by Bas Wassink for the Mutopia Project (Mutopia-2013/01/12-218) from the Collection Litolff (19th century), and placed in the public domain by the typesetter.

More at this level

• Minuet in B-flat major, BWV Anh. 118
• Douce Plainte (25 Etudes faciles, Op. 100, No. 16) Johann Friedrich Franz Burgmüller
• Inquiétude (25 Etudes faciles, Op. 100, No. 18) Johann Friedrich Franz Burgmüller
• Innocence (25 Etudes faciles, Op. 100, No. 5 - opening strain, arranged) Johann Friedrich Franz Burgmüller
• Für Elise (theme, arranged for this app) Ludwig van Beethoven