A Beautiful Minor Melody from Duvernoy

This is a beautiful pieces written by Jean-Baptiste Duvernoy (1802 - 1880). He was a French pianist and composer who lived during the Romantic period. This pieces comes from his less-known collection of pieces Op. 298. He was originally well know for his Elementary Studies, Op. 176, which was designed to improve finger co-ordination in his piano students. Those pieces are still studied today. He is also known for The School of Mechanism, Op. 120. He really focused on developing technique and creating resources for students learning the piano.

This piece, however, is less focused on technique and study. It is a simple piece, but beautifully written. It is definitely a more expressive piece that holds the melody in focus with no virtuosity needed. It starts very slowly. An E minor chord building up to A Minor with a B Major transition. The A theme is repeated twice before a short stop in a secondary key as we move to the B theme. In the B theme things start to speed up a little bit. More and more movement is made and then it really takes off and reaches an emotional cadence. The final scale starts off as a B melodic minor, but unusually transitions to a natural minor at the top part. At first I though this was a mistake, but after double checking the original score, I realize that it was in the original production. The final scale sounds good played as a natural or a melodic. It doesn't really take anything away from the piece. The last few bars is a cool down as the coda brings the music to an end. Short piece, but very emotional and tells a lot. Enjoy!