La Campanella Piano Visualizer
Liszt's La Campanella as falling notes, with every leap of the right hand visible on the keys. Restyle it and export the video, or drop your own recording or MIDI file.
La Campanella at a glance
- Work
- Grandes études de Paganini, S. 141 No. 3
- Composer
- Franz Liszt (1811-1886)
- Composed
- 1838, revised 1851
- Published
- 1851 (final version)
- Key
- G♯ minor
- Tempo
- Allegretto
- Difficulty
- Virtuoso; one of the hardest pieces in the standard repertoire
- The demo plays
- The opening, with the bell theme, 67 s
What you see in the falling notes
The right hand keeps returning to the same high note, the bell, while the melody sits up to two octaves lower, so the notes fall in two columns far apart with the hand jumping between them. Watch the gap: it is the leap the pianist has to land every time.
- 689notes
- 10.3notes per second on average
- 22notes in the busiest second
- 5notes sounding at once, at most
- G#2 to F#759 keys from the lowest note to the highest
- 6%of the notes below middle C, in the left-hand colour
Counted from the MIDI file of the demo excerpt (67 s). The sustain pedal goes down 41 times.
About La Campanella
La Campanella, "the little bell", is the third of Liszt's études after Niccolò Paganini. Its theme comes from the finale of Paganini's Violin Concerto No. 2 in B minor, where a small handbell joins the orchestra. Liszt first published his études in 1838 and rewrote them in 1851 as the Grandes études de Paganini, the version pianists play today; both are dedicated to Clara Schumann.
Liszt wanted to do on the piano what Paganini did on the violin, and the study is built on leaps: the right hand jumps between a high, ringing bell note and the melody far below, in variations that get harder as the piece goes on.
MIDI of the demo: Bernd Krueger, piano-midi.de, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE. Videos made from it carry the same credit and licence (terms). How to make one: step by step.
Famous pieces in falling notes
Frequently Asked Questions
"The little bell" in Italian. The theme comes from the finale of Paganini's Violin Concerto No. 2, where a small handbell rings along with the violin, and Liszt imitates it with a high repeated note.
It is a virtuoso study and one of the hardest pieces in the standard repertoire: wide right-hand leaps at speed, fast repeated notes and trills, all while the bell note must stay light.
Yes. The composition is in the public domain, but the MIDI file of this demo is by Bernd Krueger (piano-midi.de) under CC BY-SA 3.0 DE, so a video made from it has to credit him, for example "MIDI: Bernd Krueger, piano-midi.de, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE", and be shared under the same licence. With your own recording or MIDI file of the piece, only your rights to that file count.
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