A character piece featuring the lush, chromatic harmonies popular in the American late Romantic era. It is distinctive for its fluid, arching melodic contours.
Pay close attention to subtle harmonic shifts and the use of the sustaining pedal to connect phrase endings.
Comparable difficulty and character — good candidates for what to learn next.
Ashes of roses is rated Henle level 3 of 9 — late beginner repertoire, roughly ABRSM grades 4–5. In the RCM system it corresponds to about level 4.
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 Ashes of roses lasts about 4 minutes.
Ashes of roses 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 Prelude in E minor, No. 4 by Frédéric Chopin, Albumblad by Edvard Grieg, Brise de mer by Ruggiero Leoncavallo — see the full similar-pieces list on this page.