La Candeur (Frankness), Op. 100 No. 1

Friedrich Burgmüller, German-French romantic (1806–1874). The reading release has 4 passages from this piece at levels 3–8; the reader above opens on the easiest, bars 5–8 for the right hand alone.

Practice the hard bars →

The hardest stretch is bars 1–8 at level 8.

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 La Candeur (Frankness), Op. 100 No. 1.

1. Right hand alone · bars 5–8 level 3
2. Hands together · bars 9–12 level 5
3. The hardest bars · bars 1–8 level 8

How to play La Candeur (Frankness), Op. 100 No. 1

1. Tempo:The edition marks it Allegro moderato: lively but not rushed. Pick a speed where each four-note group sounds like one smooth gesture, and keep it steady when the left hand takes over the eighth notes.
2. Right hand:Each slurred group of four falls by step to a resting note. Treat it as a single hand shape, and let the hand move as a unit when the group shifts to a new starting note.
3. Left hand:In the first half the left hand only holds chords, so place each one silently before you play to learn the shapes. In the second half it plays its own rising eighth-note figures; practice those alone until they are as even as the right hand's.
4. Hands together:Land the left-hand chord and the first right-hand note exactly together, then keep the chord held for its full four beats while the eighth notes move above it.
5. Dynamics:The piece opens piano, grows with a written crescendo, reaches a sforzando in the second half, and ends pianissimo; make those four levels clearly different.
6. Practice:Work hands separately, then put each four-note group together with its chord one at a time. Loop the spots where the right hand changes position until they match the easy groups.
7. Reading:Most of the first half uses only a few chords, so name each one before you play it. Knowing the harmony lets you predict where the right-hand group will start.

Common mistakes

• Rushing the repeated four-note groups because they feel familiar. Fix: Keep a metronome on and use the repeat to shape the phrase, not to speed up.
• Lifting the left-hand whole-note chords early, which leaves a gap under the tune. Fix: Count all four beats on every chord and release only as the next one sounds.
• Letting the left-hand eighth notes in the second half drown out the right hand. Fix: Play the left-hand figures alone at piano first, then add the right hand slightly louder.
• Missing the A-flats in the closing chords. Fix: Circle the flats in the coda before you start and play those chords slowly as blocks.

Structure: binary with coda

Two repeated halves. The first half sets the right hand's slurred scale groups over held chords and moves to the dominant; the second half hands the moving eighth notes to the left hand, builds to a sforzando, and leads to a short coda with darker A-flat harmonies and a pianissimo ending.

A · Scale groups over held chords (C major)

The right hand plays falling four-note groups, each repeated, while the left hand holds a whole-note chord. A crescendo carries the phrase to a cadence on G.

B · Left hand moves (C major (over the dominant))

Now the left hand plays rising eighth-note figures while the right hand repeats short groups over it and then holds chords. The section swells to a sforzando and slows with a dolce, slightly held-back phrase.

Coda · Closing (C major)

The right-hand groups return over A-flat chords in the left hand, then the piece fades through a held C major chord to pianissimo.

About La Candeur (Frankness), Op. 100 No. 1

Friedrich Burgmüller was born in Regensburg in 1806 and moved to Paris in 1832, where he wrote salon music and, later, piano studies for children. His 25 Études faciles et progressives, Op. 100, appeared in Paris in 1851, and La Candeur is the piece that opens the book.

The French title promises studies composed and fingered for small hands, and this first one keeps that promise. The right hand mostly plays four-note scale groups slurred together, while the left hand holds simple chords underneath.

Op. 100 is intended for early intermediate players, and Burgmüller followed it with two sets for more advanced students, Op. 105 and Op. 109. Each study has a descriptive title, so a pupil gets a character to aim for as well as a technique.

• Burgmüller's Peasant Pas de Deux was added to Adolphe Adam's ballet Giselle for its 1841 premiere, ten years before Op. 100 appeared.
• The Op. 100 set was registered in the Bibliographie de la France on 27 December 1851, according to IMSLP.
• Near the end of La Candeur the left hand borrows A-flat chords, a darker color borrowed from the minor mode just before the quiet close.

Why the first passage is level 3

That passage is level 3 rather than 2 because a hand covers more than one position, it leaps a fifth, the line roams across the staff, it leaves the five-finger position.

The right hand moves in four-note scale groups and the left hand changes chord only about once a bar in the first half, so read by shape and harmony rather than note by note.

Questions about La Candeur (Frankness), Op. 100 No. 1

How hard is La Candeur (Frankness), Op. 100 No. 1 to play?

Its passages grade from level 3 to level 8 on Real Sight Reader's ten-level reading scale, so the full piece is intermediate to advanced reading. The hardest stretch is bars 1–8 at level 8.

Is there an easy part of La Candeur (Frankness), Op. 100 No. 1 for beginners?

Yes. Start with bars 5–8 for the right hand alone, the level-3 passage in the reader at the top of this page; it is level 3 because a hand covers more than one position and it leaps a fifth.

What key and time signature is La Candeur (Frankness), Op. 100 No. 1 in?

La Candeur (Frankness), Op. 100 No. 1 is in C major, no sharps or flats. The engraving on this page is in 4/4 time.

Who composed La Candeur (Frankness), Op. 100 No. 1?

Friedrich Burgmüller, German-French romantic (1806–1874). Friedrich Burgmüller was born in Regensburg in 1806 and moved to Paris in 1832, where he wrote salon music and, later, piano studies for children.

Can I practice La Candeur (Frankness), Op. 100 No. 1 online for free?

Yes. The reader on this page plays any of the 4 graded passages from La Candeur (Frankness), Op. 100 No. 1 in your browser, with an on-screen keyboard or a MIDI keyboard, and marks every note as you play. No signup.

What does La Candeur mean?

Candeur is French for candor or openness; English editions translate the title in different ways, such as Frankness or Sincerity.

Which Burgmüller study comes after La Candeur?

No. 2 of Op. 100 is L'arabesque, and No. 3 is La pastorale.

Is La Candeur in the public domain?

Yes. Burgmüller died in 1874, and free public-domain editions of Op. 100 are available on IMSLP and from the Mutopia Project.

Every passage, easiest first

The reading release grades 4 distinct passages of this piece. Open any of them in the reader:

Level 3

bars 5–8 right hand · bars 17–20 right hand

Level 5

bars 9–12 both hands

Level 8

bars 1–8 both hands

More pieces to sight-read

• La Styrienne, Op. 100 No. 14 Burgmüller · level 3
• Tendre Fleur (Tender Flower), Op. 100 No. 10 Burgmüller · level 4
• The Clear Stream (Le Courant limpide), Op. 100 No. 7 Burgmüller · level 4
• Arabesque, Op. 100 No. 2 Burgmüller · level 5
• Ballade, Op. 100 No. 15 Burgmüller · level 5
• La Chasse (The Chase), Op. 100 No. 9 Burgmüller · level 6

Score: public-domain engraving from the corpus (mutopia-ly), graded by the piano-reading-v2-20261023-identity-audit reading release.

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