Course · Lessons
Each lesson is a complete visit to one piece, with pictures and audio. Read, listen, then say it out loud.
In your AMusA exam, after you finish playing, two examiners sit with you and talk about your pieces. They don't want you to recite a list of dates. The syllabus asks for a "mature understanding… used as a basis for discussing the interpretive choices that they make" — in other words, they want to know that you have lived with this music, and above all why you play it the way you do.
This course gives you exactly that. Work through one lesson at a time, listen while you read, and try saying the answers out loud — because the exam is a conversation, not a test paper.
Each lesson is a complete visit to one piece. Tap a card to begin.
A 27-bar fugue packed with more counterpoint than pieces ten times its length, and a prelude that grew from 43 bars to 61. Baroque, c. 1740.
Lesson 2 · AMEB List AHis only C minor sonata — storms, silences, two written-out cadenzas, and an ending that quietly refuses to resolve. Classical, 1771.
Lesson 3 · AMEB List CNumbered last, written early, published forty years late — glittering and extrovert, by a 20-year-old about to leave home forever. Romantic, c. 1830.
Lesson 4 · AMEB List DSix real village dances — seven tunes — recorded on a wax-cylinder machine in named villages, turned into piano magic. Twentieth century, 1915.
Why these four pieces belong side by side: the instrument that changes under your hands, the three different "minors", and the hidden dance. Plus a quiz.
The bigger picture behind your programme. Open what you need.
Two hundred and fifty years, four composers. Follow the timeline — your pieces are the gold stars.
Examiners love to zoom out and ask "so tell us about your whole programme." These three ideas turn four separate pieces into one story. (Full versions in the bonus lesson.)
Bach's harpsichord had no volume control from the keys. Haydn's fortepiano had five octaves and leather hammers. Chopin's Pleyel was songful and delicate. Bartók had the modern iron-framed grand — and hit it like a drum.
Bach's D minor is rhetoric (an old lament figure). Haydn's C minor is tragedy (it refuses a happy ending). Chopin's E minor is brilliance (sparkling, not sad). Then Bartók steps outside major and minor altogether.
Haydn's finale borrows a dance step (but isn't a dance). Chopin's waltz looks like a dance (but you can't dance to it). Bartók's six pieces were really danced, by real villagers, and he recorded them.