20 Minuets, D. 41
Franz Schubert (1797–1828) · sheet music
- Time 3/4
- Levels 8
- Passages 1
Your turn · both hands
Preparing your passage…
Franz Schubert, Austrian romantic (1797–1828). The reading release has 1 passage from this piece at level 8; the reader above opens on the easiest, bars 9–12 for both hands together.
The hardest stretch is bars 9–12 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 20 Minuets, D. 41.
- Hands together · bars 9–12 level 8
How to play 20 Minuets, D. 41
- Tempo:Aim for a moderate, graceful pace, one swing per measure. Each minuet is about two minutes with the trio, so a steady, unhurried tempo works best.
- Right hand:Shape the melody in clear phrases, leaning into the highest note and relaxing at the cadence. Where you see slurs, connect them; where there are none, a light detached touch suits the dance.
- Left hand:Keep the accompaniment steady and soft. Give beat one a gentle weight and let beats two and three be lighter.
- Hands together:Join the hands one phrase at a time and make sure beat one lines up cleanly. If the hands slip apart, return to hands separate for that phrase.
- Reading:The key changes from one minuet to the next, so check the key signature before each. The passage on this page has two flats, B-flat major, so prepare B-flat and E-flat before you start.
- Dynamics:Use a soft start, a small crescendo toward the middle of the phrase, and a soft landing. Make the trio feel different with a change in touch or volume.
- Practice:Practice each half separately, then the whole minuet, then add the trio. Record yourself and listen for an even beat.
Common mistakes
- Treating the minuet as a waltz by stressing beat one too hard. Fix: Keep beat one light and think of one gentle pulse per measure.
- Skipping the contrast in the trio and playing it just like the minuet. Fix: Change the touch, dynamic, or tempo feel slightly when you reach the trio.
- Forgetting the B-flats and E-flats of B-flat major, especially in the full chords. Fix: Say B-flat and E-flat aloud before starting, and block each chord shape silently first.
Structure: minuet and trio
Each piece pairs a minuet with a contrasting trio, after which the minuet is played again. That gives an A-B-A frame in which the trio supplies the change of mood or texture.
- Minuet · Minuet
- A direct, danceable tune in triple time with clear phrases. Expect a left hand that sets the beat under the melody.
- Trio · Trio
- A contrasting middle section that gives the player a chance to change touch and color.
- A' · Minuet returns
- The minuet is heard again to round off the dance.
About 20 Minuets, D. 41
In 1813 Schubert wrote a large set of thirty minuets with trios for piano. Only twenty survive: Nos. 1-8, 11-18, and 20-23 are extant, while ten others, Nos. 9, 10, 19, and 24-30, are lost. The pieces stayed unpublished until Julius Epstein edited them for the Breitkopf and Härtel complete edition of Schubert's works in 1889.
These are dance-sized pieces, each a minuet paired with a trio, written in a spread of keys: F, C, B-flat, A minor, D, and G. Piano Library rates them only 1.5 to 2 on its difficulty scale and times each at about two minutes.
The shapes are simple and regular, which makes them good material for learning how a classical phrase breathes and how a trio can change the mood before the minuet returns. The passage on this page comes from one of the B-flat major minuets in the set.
- Ten of the thirty minuets are lost: Nos. 9, 10, 19, and 24-30 do not survive.
- The surviving minuets were first published in 1889, decades after Schubert's death.
- Piano Library gives them about two minutes each, so the surviving set runs around forty minutes.
- Five surviving minuets in a row, Nos. 13 to 17, are all in D major.
Why the first passage is level 8
That passage is level 8 rather than 7 because it leaps a major third plus an octave.
One graded passage here sits at level 8, in 3/4 with two flats. Full right-hand chords and wide left-hand leaps set the level, so read each chord as one shape and the bass by interval.
Questions about 20 Minuets, D. 41
- How hard is 20 Minuets, D. 41 to play?
- Its passages grade from 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 9–12 at level 8.
- Is there an easy part of 20 Minuets, D. 41 for beginners?
- Its easiest passage is level 8, so it suits a reader past the beginner stage. Start with bars 9–12 for both hands together, the level-8 passage in the reader at the top of this page; it is level 8 because it leaps a major third plus an octave.
- What key and time signature is 20 Minuets, D. 41 in?
- The engraving on this page is in 3/4 time.
- Who composed 20 Minuets, D. 41?
- Franz Schubert, Austrian romantic (1797–1828). In 1813 Schubert wrote a large set of thirty minuets with trios for piano.
- Can I practice 20 Minuets, D. 41 online for free?
- Yes. The reader on this page plays any of the one graded passage from 20 Minuets, D. 41 in your browser, with an on-screen keyboard or a MIDI keyboard, and marks every note as you play. No signup.
- Why are there only twenty minuets when the set had thirty?
- Ten of the thirty are lost: Nos. 9, 10, 19, and 24-30 do not survive. The remaining twenty were first printed in 1889.
- Were the minuets published in Schubert's lifetime?
- No. They were first printed in 1889, edited by Julius Epstein for the Breitkopf and Härtel complete edition of Schubert's works.
- What is the difference between a minuet and a trio?
- The minuet is the main dance. The trio is a contrasting middle section, after which the minuet is played again.
Every passage, easiest first
The reading release grades one passage of this piece. Open any of them in the reader:
- Level 8
- bars 9–12 both hands
More pieces to sight-read
Score: public-domain engraving from the corpus (pdmx), graded by the piano-reading-v2-20261023-identity-audit reading release.