Ballade, Op. 100 No. 15

Friedrich Burgmüller (1,806–1,874)

Key: C minor
Style: Studies
Level: Level 4
Roughly: RCM 4 · ABRSM 4 · Trinity 4 · Henle 2–3
Lesson: 4.6 Open the tonic arpeggio
Musicianship: 4.6 Major and minor cadences
Focus: large-scale narrative form; voicing, drama, virtuosity

What its lesson teaches

4.6 Open the tonic arpeggio

Study Burgmüller’s Ballade, Op. 100 No. 15, in C minor. In bars 3–4 the left hand plays slurred sixteenths; bars 5–6 outline the tonic chord, C–E flat–G–C, in eighths with rests, under the right hand’s repeated chords. Shape that bass line and keep the chords light. The cards on rolled chords, Romantic pedalling and octaves prepare the pieces that follow; this study prints none of them. At the keyboard: play a tonic arpeggio.

Ideas: Rolled chords
Pedalling Romantic harmony
Octaves and stretches
Theory cards: Rolled chords
Pedalling Romantic harmony
Octaves and stretches
Technique: C harmonic minor scale, hands together, 2 octaves
C minor broken triad, hands together, 2 octaves

Edition and licence

Score: Edition: Collection Litolff, 19th century (as named by the encoder)

Encoding source: https://www.mutopiaproject.org/cgibin/piece-info.cgi?id=227

Checked bar by bar against Benoit aîné, Paris, 1851, plate 410.B (BnF Gallica btv1b52502531m, Wikimedia Commons), 2026-10-28: every bar compared; 4 bars corrected (bars 47, 48, 51 and 52); the printed dynamics, tempo and expression words restored; the printed repeat and navigation signs restored; markings corrected in bars 28-30, 92, 94 and 96. · public domain

Ballade

Typeset by Bas Wassink.

Edition: Collection Litolff, 19th century (as named by the encoder)

Public Domain

Source: https://www.mutopiaproject.org/cgibin/piece-info.cgi?id=227

Licence: Public Domain (Mutopia Project licensing: https://www.mutopiaproject.org/legal.html)

Adapted by Musalea: converted to MusicXML and prepared for interactive practice.

The other lesson pieces of Level 4

Minuet in F major, BWV Anh. 113, Anonymous (Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach)
Minuet in A minor, BWV Anh. 120, Anonymous (Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach)
160 Eight-Measure Exercises, No. 17, Op. 821 No. 17, Carl Czerny
Bagatelle 'Lustig-Traurig', WoO 54, Ludwig van Beethoven
Sonatina in C major, Op. 36 No. 1: III. Vivace, Muzio Clementi
Trällerliedchen (Humming Song), Op. 68 No. 3, Robert Schumann
Traditioner af swenska folk-dansar, Part 2 No. 31, Traditional, arr. Olof Åhlström
Polonaise in D minor, BWV Anh. 128, Anonymous (Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach)
Boxcar Boogie, written for the Method

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