Pièces mélodiques Op. 149 n°15

About this work

In No. 15 of Diabelli’s Op. 149, the Primo player’s two hands sing the same melody an octave apart. This Andante cantabile in D major moves in common time. A dotted eighth note followed by a sixteenth leads into the first full bar; the Secondo waits through that pickup, then supports the tune with steady arpeggios and widely spaced bass notes.

The accompaniment changes as the piece unfolds. Arpeggios give way to chords separated by rests, then to more closely packed sixteenth notes. The Primo’s little grace notes need to fit within that movement without rushing the main note. A fermata brings both players to a pause in the middle. The following phrases gather momentum again, pass through stronger passages, and return to a quiet ending.

In rehearsal, try the Primo melody in just one hand while the Secondo plays very lightly. Add the Primo’s other hand without changing the shape or breathing of the phrase. Agree on the restart after the fermata: a shared breath and a glance can make the entrance much clearer. Both sections have repeat signs, so decide on the route before playing; the final phrase needs to arrive together.

What the document containsScore: The 4-page PDF presents the Secondo and Primo parts separately, with fingering, slurs, dynamics and repeats. The MIDI brings both players together.Alberto Simões’s LilyPond engraving comes from the Mutopia Project. It is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, requiring attribution and the same licence for adaptations. The older edition used for this engraving is not identified. The PDF retains the Mutopia credits and adds a clickable LesPartitions.info link on each page.