Real Sight Reader
Piano sound
Browser piano

Play your MIDI keyboard through this device’s audio output. Plug headphones into this device and turn down your piano’s own speakers.

← All pieces

100 Progressive Recreations, No. 1

Carl Czerny (1791–1857) · sheet music

  • Time 2/4
  • Levels 1–3
  • Passages 8

Your turn · both hands

 

 

Loading passage…

Preparing your passage…

Carl Czerny, Austrian classical (1791–1857). The reading release has 8 passages from this piece at levels 1–3; the reader above opens on the easiest, bars 6–9 for the right hand alone.

Practice the hard bars →

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 100 Progressive Recreations, No. 1.

  1. Right hand alone · bars 6–9 level 1
  2. The hardest bars · bars 1–8 level 3

How to play 100 Progressive Recreations, No. 1

  1. Tempo:No tempo is printed, so choose a calm speed at which you can name each note before it arrives. Count two quarter-note beats in every bar.
  2. Right hand:Keep the hand in a five-finger position with the thumb on C and the fifth finger on G. The edition marks the jump from C to G with the thumb and then the fifth finger, so let the hand stay still and only the fingers move.
  3. Left hand:The left hand plays one half note per bar, also in the treble clef. Hold each note for its full two beats before moving to the next.
  4. Hands together:Each left-hand note starts together with the first right-hand note of the bar. Play the two together, then let the right hand add its second note while the left hand holds.
  5. Reading:Read each bar as a pair: the same note twice, or two neighboring notes. Seeing the pairs makes the B section easy, because it is one four-bar idea played twice.
  6. Rhythm:Every bar ending a phrase has a single half note in the right hand. Count both beats so the phrase ends cleanly before the next one begins.
  7. Practice:Learn the right hand alone first, then the left hand alone, and only then put them together slowly. Take the repeats once you can play each half without stopping.

Common mistakes

  • Cutting the half notes short to get to the next phrase. Fix: Count one-two out loud on every half note.
  • Moving the whole hand for the jump from C to G instead of reaching with the fifth finger. Fix: Place all five fingers on C, D, E, F and G before you start and keep them there.
  • Releasing the left-hand note as soon as the right hand plays its second note. Fix: Practice holding the left-hand note while saying the count until the end of the bar.
  • Forgetting the repeat signs or taking the wrong ending of the tune in the second half. Fix: Point to each repeat sign before playing and notice how the final phrase differs from the first.

Structure: binary with return (A–B–A)

The piece has two repeated halves. The first half is a single eight-bar tune that ends on C. The second half starts with a new four-bar idea heard twice, then brings back the opening tune with a slightly different ending.

A · Opening tune (C major)
Repeated-note pairs that jump up from C to G and then walk back down, answered by a phrase that comes home to C. Played twice.
B · New idea (C major)
A short phrase on D, F, E and G, played twice in a row. It ends on G and leaves the music hanging until the opening returns.
A' · Return (C major)
The opening tune comes back, with the last phrase now skipping between notes on its way down to C. The whole second half is repeated.

About 100 Progressive Recreations, No. 1

Carl Czerny, born in Vienna in 1791, was accepted as a pupil by Beethoven at about the age of ten and later taught the young Franz Liszt without charging a fee. He wrote more than a thousand works with opus numbers running to 861, and much of that output is teaching music arranged from easy to hard.

100 Progressive Recreations is one of those graded collections. The edition on IMSLP was issued in four books by Ed. Schuberth of New York in 1880, edited and revised by H. W. Nicholl, and it gives no opus number. It is not the same as Czerny's better-known 100 Progressive Studies, Op. 139: the publisher's own catalogue on the back cover lists the two as separate sets.

No. 1 is the true starting point. Both hands read in the treble clef, the right hand never leaves the five notes from C to G, and the left hand plays one long note per bar, so a beginner can focus on reading steps, skips and repeated notes.

  • In this edition both hands of No. 1 are written in the treble clef, so a beginner does not need the bass clef yet.
  • Czerny gave the Vienna premiere of Beethoven's Emperor Concerto in 1812, at age 21.
  • Liszt later dedicated his Transcendental Etudes to Czerny, his childhood teacher.

Why the first passage is level 1

That passage is level 1, the first rung: it moves by whole steps or less, in quarter-note values, in one hand.

Every passage on this page is right hand alone in C major, so read them as one-clef melodies and move on once each note comes without hesitation.

Questions about 100 Progressive Recreations, No. 1

How hard is 100 Progressive Recreations, No. 1 to play?
Its passages grade from level 1 to 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 100 Progressive Recreations, No. 1 for beginners?
Yes. Start with bars 6–9 for the right hand alone, the level-1 passage in the reader at the top of this page.
What key and time signature is 100 Progressive Recreations, No. 1 in?
The engraving on this page is in 2/4 time.
Who composed 100 Progressive Recreations, No. 1?
Carl Czerny, Austrian classical (1791–1857). Carl Czerny, born in Vienna in 1791, was accepted as a pupil by Beethoven at about the age of ten and later taught the young Franz Liszt without charging a fee.
Can I practice 100 Progressive Recreations, No. 1 online for free?
Yes. The reader on this page plays any of the 8 graded passages from 100 Progressive Recreations, No. 1 in your browser, with an on-screen keyboard or a MIDI keyboard, and marks every note as you play. No signup.
Is 100 Progressive Recreations the same as Czerny's Op. 139?
No. The 1880 Schuberth edition lists 100 Progressive Recreations and 100 Easy Studies, Op. 139 as separate books in its catalogue, and the Recreations edition gives no opus number.
How long does it take to learn Czerny's Recreation No. 1?
It is written for a first lesson, so most beginners can play it after a few short practice sessions. The goal is to read it steadily, not quickly.
Is this Czerny piece in the public domain?
Yes. Czerny died in 1857 and the 1880 edition is free to download from IMSLP.

Every passage, easiest first

The reading release grades 8 distinct passages of this piece. Open any of them in the reader:

Level 1
bars 6–9 right hand · bars 18–21 right hand
Level 2
bars 9–12 right hand · bars 21–24 right hand
Level 3
bars 1–8 right hand · bars 9–16 right hand · bars 17–24 right hand · bars 17–20 right hand

More pieces to sight-read

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

Keep training on your phone Practice with your own pieces — free on the App Store