Melodious Exercises op. 149

With "Melodic Exercise Pieces" the composer and piano teacher Anton Diabelli has achieved an artistic breakthrough; to this day there is hardly a student who has not studied the pieces with pleasure at some point in his or her piano career. The composer himself emphasizes the instructive character of the pieces: he calls them "exercise pieces" and deliberately limits the pitch range to the space of a fifth, thus sparing the student difficult jumps and making it easier to read the music; often both hands are held parallel.

The pieces are arranged according to keys. Tone images in major and minor are presented above the basic tones c, g, f, d, a, e, each tonal space is secured before venturing into new landscapes. Each of the small compositions represents a piece of living music.