La Styrienne

The opening

I worked on this song after selecting three must-play pieces from Friedrich Burgmuller's Twenty-five Easy and Progressive Etudes. (The other two are La Reunion and La Babillarde.) The opening explicitly introduces the song as a waltz, not just by the phrase "Mouvement di Valse" but also by the 3/4 time signature and the accents (>) on the first notes of each bar. (Note that minuets, which are also dances and written in 3/4 time, don't have such heavily accented first beats.) Of course, the second and third beats are also heavily accented in waltz rhythms, so it's really the left hand that sustains the form throughout the rest of the song, as the second and third notes of each bar are always identical and that adds a certain amount of natural accentuation. (I'm actually learning a waltz in John Thompson that doesn't do this all the time, but still maintains more than enough of that motif to participate in the form.) 

The melody is naturally what drew me to the song. It has this carefree feel to it, emphasised (if not created) by the frequent note-bending effected by the grace notes. The acciaccaturas introduced in the opening (pictured above) are echoed in the appoggiaturas sprinkled throughout the rest of the piece. I made a mistake while playing these (right) at first because I overlooked the tie between the first of the semiquavers and the main note. So I had to correct that once I recognised it. Wasn't fun... and I'm still working on it. 

The rest of the main section is characterised by its continuous rhythm. It almost completely fills the semiquaver slots so your right hand is in motion all the time.

The phrase that closes this section strikes me as starlike because a constant back-and-forth of the fingers in the right hand hints at that pattern.

 
The other note-worthy section is the ending, which is pretty much a variation on the opening theme. It involves some pretty significant jumps and gave me a bit of trouble to articulate, but it was also quite fun. Overall, I think the piece was a good selection for me because it presented a challenge to my abilities, but one that was nevertheless within reach: an appropriate stepping stone. Glad I learned it.