Polka (Album for the Young Op. 39 No. 14)

Piotr Ilitch Tchaïkovski · Level 3 (Late beginner) · Romantic · Piano

A light, bouncing polka in B-flat major, with its little ornamented figures and a bolder middle section. From the Album for the Young Op. 39 (1878), twenty-four easy pieces Tchaikovsky wrote for his nephew, on the model of Schumann’s Album for the Young. B♭ major, 2/4, 30 bars (about one minute), complete score.

▶ Play this piece with the interactive score

How to practise it

• Listen first: the site plays it while the score scrolls.
• Wait mode: the score waits for you at every note, at your own pace.
• Tempo challenge: play in time, with a score and a map of the bars you got right.
• Keep the left-hand accompaniment short and bouncy, like a dance step. For chords, shape the hand in the air before landing, all notes together. Start hands separately in Wait mode, then put hands together at a slow tempo before speeding up gradually.

More pieces by Piotr Ilitch Tchaïkovski

• Swan Lake: Neapolitan Dance (piano arrangement)
• The Seasons: January (O 37,1)
• The Seasons: February (Carnival)
• The Seasons: August (Harvest)
• March of the Wooden Soldiers (Op. 39 No. 5)
• Morning Prayer (Op. 39 No. 1)
• Old French Song (Op. 39 No. 16)
• Swan Lake, swan theme

Source : PDMX / MuseScore · CC0 1.0