page_title: La campanella
hierarchical_section_title: La campanella
caption_attribution_description: Liszt's La Campanella Étude. The 35-half step skip in the left hand 7 measures into the Più mosso.
context_page_description: "La campanella" is the nickname given to the third of Franz Liszt's six Grandes études de Paganini, S. 141. It is in the key of G-sharp minor. This piece is a revision of an earlier version from 1838, the Études d'exécution transcendente d'après Paganini, S. 140. Its melody comes from the final movement of Niccolò Paganini's Violin Concerto No. 2 in B minor, where the tune was reinforced metaphorically by a 'little handbell'. This is illustrated by the large intervals of 16th notes in the right hand.
  Incipit for "La campanella" by Franz Liszt
  The étude is famous for being one of the most difficult pieces ever written for piano. It is played at a brisk allegretto tempo and features right hand jumps between intervals larger than one octave, sometimes even stretching for two whole octaves within the time of a sixteenth note. As a whole, the étude can be practiced to increase dexterity and accuracy at large jumps on the piano, along with agility of the weaker fingers of the hand. The largest intervals reached by the right hand are fifteenths and sixteenths.
context_section_description: "La campanella" (Italian for "The little bell") is the nickname given to the third of Franz Liszt's six Grandes études de Paganini, S. 141 (1851). It is in the key of G-sharp minor. This piece is a revision of an earlier version from 1838, the Études d'exécution transcendente d'après Paganini, S. 140. Its melody comes from the final movement of Niccolò Paganini's Violin Concerto No. 2 in B minor, where the tune was reinforced metaphorically by a 'little handbell'. This is illustrated by the large intervals of 16th notes in the right hand.
  Incipit for "La campanella" by Franz Liszt (Grandes études de Paganini S. 141 no. 3)
  The étude is famous for being one of the most difficult pieces ever written for piano. It is played at a brisk allegretto tempo and features right hand jumps between intervals larger than one octave, sometimes even stretching for two whole octaves within the time of a sixteenth note. As a whole, the étude can be practiced to increase dexterity and accuracy at large jumps on the piano, along with agility of the weaker fingers of the hand. The largest intervals reached by the right hand are fifteenths (two octaves) and sixteenths (two octaves and a second). Sixteenth notes are played between the two notes, and the same note is played two octaves or two octaves and a second higher with no rest. Little time is provided for the pianist to move the hand, thus forcing the pianist to avoid tension within the muscles. Fifteenth intervals are quite common in the beginning of the étude, while the sixteenth intervals appear twice, at the thirtieth and thirty-second measures.
  However, the left hand studies about four extremely large intervals, larger than those in the right hand. For example, in bar 101, the left hand makes a sixteenth-note jump of just a half-step below three octaves. The étude also involves other technical difficulties, e.g. trills with the fourth and fifth fingers.
  The work has been arranged by other composers and pianists, most notably Ferruccio Busoni and Marc-André Hamelin.
caption: The two red notes are 35 half-steps apart (~46cm apart on a piano.)
exif: {}