Markus Koch was an educator who produced accessible, melodic pedagogical works. This piece balances an active, flowing accompaniment with a lyrical, singing top line.
Work on balancing the melody against a delicate, fluid background texture.
Comparable difficulty and character — good candidates for what to learn next.
Allegro cantabile is rated Henle level 3 of 9 — late beginner repertoire, roughly ABRSM grades 4–5. In the RCM system it corresponds to about level 5.
You should be comfortable at Henle level 3 — meaning you can already play level 2–3 pieces cleanly. Learning it one level early is possible as a stretch piece, but more than that usually leads to months of frustration.
A typical performance of Allegro cantabile lasts about 2 minutes.
Allegro cantabile is available as free public-domain sheet music on IMSLP — the score is linked directly from this page.
Pieces at a comparable difficulty and character include Believe Me, If All those Endearing Young Charms by Irish Folk Music, "s'kommt ein Vogel geflogen" by Siegfried Ochs, Albumblatt by Felix Mendelssohn — see the full similar-pieces list on this page.