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Piano sheet music for kids · Round · Level 5: A wider range
Viva la Musica
Free beginner piano sheet music: C major, 4/4, 6 bars, played twice. Press Play to hear it on a real piano, slow it down, or hear one hand at a time; click any note to start from there; print it for the music stand.
About this arrangement
A three-part round in praise of music; the Italian words mean “long live music”. Each part is two bars, and the repeat sign means play all three twice. Part 1 starts on the high G with a dotted crotchet and a quaver (eighth note), then runs down in quavers to B; part 2 starts on E, climbs to G and comes back to D; part 3 starts on the C above middle C, drops down to F and rises G, A, G. The hand has to move for each part. The left hand changes chord every bar, C then G, with a touch of F under that drop.
Practice tip: Play each part slowly until the moves between them are smooth. As a round, a second player starts at bar 1 when the first reaches bar 3, and a third at bar 5.
The words
Viva, viva la musica! Viva, viva la musica! Viva la musica!
A short history
Viva la musica is attributed to Michael Praetorius (1571–1621), the German composer and organist best known for Terpsichore, his collection of more than three hundred dances, and for the setting of Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming that choirs still sing at Christmas. Some modern editions date it to 1609.
The attribution is not certain. The Choral Public Domain Library marks it as misattributed, and no one has pointed to the book of Praetorius’s in which it first appeared, so it may be a later round that borrowed his name. It was certainly in print by 1930, when Fritz Jöde included it, under Praetorius’s name, in Der Irrgarten, a book of canons for schools.
It is a canon in three parts: the second voice starts when the first reaches bar 3, the third at bar 5, and all three fit together over C and G.
Quick facts
- Tune
- Attributed to Michael Praetorius (1571–1621)
- Key
- C major
- Time signature
- 4/4
- Length
- 6 bars, played twice
- Tempo
- Joyfully, crotchet = 96
- Difficulty
- Level 5: A wider range (piece 151 of 201)
- Type
- Round
- Hands
- Both: melody in the right hand, chords in the left
- Copyright
- Public domain tune; arrangement by Digital Greenhouse, free for personal and classroom use
Questions and answers
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