Preparatory School, Op. 101 No. 23
Ferdinand Beyer (1803–1863) · sheet music
- Time 4/4
- Levels 3
- Passages 5
Your turn · both hands
Preparing your passage…
Ferdinand Beyer, German romantic (1803–1863). The reading release has 5 passages from this piece at level 3; the reader above opens on the easiest, bars 1–4 for the right hand alone.
The hardest stretch is bars 1–8 at level 3.
Your practice path
Learn it the way teachers do: each hand on its own, then together, then the hard bars. Each step is a real graded passage of Preparatory School, Op. 101 No. 23.
- Right hand alone · bars 1–8 level 3
How to play Preparatory School, Op. 101 No. 23
- Tempo:Moderato in the Peters edition: a walking pulse slow enough that you can read the first note of the next group before you reach it.
- Right hand:Keep all five fingers over C to G; the hand never shifts, only the starting finger changes.
- Fingering:Start the groups with 3 on E, 4 on F, and 5 on G; near the end of the first half the edition prints 5-1-3 where G drops to C and skips up to E.
- Left hand:Most of the left-hand part is whole notes; count all four beats on each one.
- Hands together:The one busy left-hand spot is the G-F-E-D descent under the right hand's long D, so practice that exchange slowly until the hands take turns cleanly.
- Practice:Play only the first note of each group, E, F, G, with the correct finger, then fill in the rest of each group.
- Reading:Read each group's first note, then its shape: a skip down followed by steps back up.
Common mistakes
- Starting every group on the thumb out of habit. Fix: Check the finger for the first note of each group before you play it.
- Landing heavily after the fall from G down to C. Fix: Keep the thumb resting near C so the drop is a short, quiet motion.
- Rushing the left hand's quarter notes under the long D. Fix: Count four aloud so the descent fills the whole measure.
- Cutting the whole notes short. Fix: Hold each one through all four counts.
Structure: rounded binary (second half repeated)
The first half sets out three four-note groups, rests on D, then repeats the idea and closes on C. Its repeated second half starts the groups on F and G, rests on D again, and ends with the closing phrase of the first half.
- A · Groups from E, F, G
- E-C-D-E, F-D-E-F, then G dropping to C and climbing to E, before a whole-note D. The new task is the changing first note.
- B · Starting on F
- The second half opens on F with finger 4 and turns its last group downward, F-D-E-C, to rest on D again.
- A · Close
- The closing groups of the first half return and settle on a whole note C.
About Preparatory School, Op. 101 No. 23
No. 23 is a lesson in starting points. The right hand moves in steady quarter notes grouped by four, and the groups begin on different notes, E, then F, then G, so the hand cannot simply start every group from the thumb. The Peters edition marks finger 3 on the first note of the piece and finger 4 on the first note of the second half.
Each group skips down and then climbs back by step: E-C-D-E, F-D-E-F, and G-C-D-E, where the fall from G to C is the widest move. A whole-note D halfway through gives the right hand a rest, and that is exactly where the left hand, which otherwise holds slow whole notes, steps down G-F-E-D in quarter notes.
PTNA describes the first 64 numbers of the book as five-note exercises, with passing the thumb under held back until the second half. No. 23 shows how much variety Beyer finds in those five keys just by moving the first note of each group.
- Beyer also wrote a companion book of tunes, the Melodienbuch, Op. 101 bis, as an appendix to the Preparatory School, according to PTNA.
- IMSLP hosts seven scans of the book, including editions from Peters in Leipzig, Schirmer in New York, and Ricordi, Curci, and Carisch in Milan.
Why the first passage is level 3
That passage is level 3 rather than 2 because it leaps a fifth.
Five notes, no sharps or flats, and steady quarter notes: the reading work is spotting where each four-note group starts and which finger plays it.
Questions about Preparatory School, Op. 101 No. 23
- How hard is Preparatory School, Op. 101 No. 23 to play?
- Its passages grade from level 3 on Real Sight Reader's ten-level reading scale, which keeps all of it within beginner reading. The hardest stretch is bars 1–8 at level 3.
- Is there an easy part of Preparatory School, Op. 101 No. 23 for beginners?
- Yes. Start with bars 1–4 for the right hand alone, the level-3 passage in the reader at the top of this page; it is level 3 because it leaps a fifth.
- What key and time signature is Preparatory School, Op. 101 No. 23 in?
- The engraving on this page is in 4/4 time.
- Who composed Preparatory School, Op. 101 No. 23?
- Ferdinand Beyer, German romantic (1803–1863). No.
- Can I practice Preparatory School, Op. 101 No. 23 online for free?
- Yes. The reader on this page plays any of the 5 graded passages from Preparatory School, Op. 101 No. 23 in your browser, with an on-screen keyboard or a MIDI keyboard, and marks every note as you play. No signup.
- What is Beyer's Melodienbuch, Op. 101 bis?
- A companion book of short pieces on popular tunes that Beyer published as an appendix to the Preparatory School, according to PTNA.
- How long does No. 23 take to play?
- About 50 seconds, according to the PTNA Piano Music Encyclopedia.
Every passage, easiest first
The reading release grades 5 distinct passages of this piece. Open any of them in the reader:
- Level 3
- bars 1–8 right hand · bars 1–4 right hand · bars 5–8 right hand · bars 9–12 right hand · bars 9–16 right hand
More pieces to sight-read
Score: public-domain engraving from the corpus (imslp-omr), graded by the piano-reading-v2-20261023-identity-audit reading release.