A highly descriptive, agitated work meant to evoke the chaos and urgency of a fire. It utilizes rapid figurations to build tension throughout the short duration.
The student must master rapid, agitated hand movements while maintaining clear voicing in the melodic lines.
Comparable difficulty and character — good candidates for what to learn next.
Au feu! is rated Henle level 4 of 9 — intermediate repertoire, roughly ABRSM grades 5–6. In the RCM system it corresponds to about level 6.
You should be comfortable at Henle level 4 — meaning you can already play level 3–4 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 Au feu! lasts about 3 minutes.
Au feu! 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 Allegro in A major by Max Reger, Bohaterowi! by Karol Kurpiński, Bergfahrt by Philipp Scharwenka — see the full similar-pieces list on this page.