A late-Romantic parlor work by the French composer Désiré Dihau. It features a sentimental melody supported by a standard broken-chord accompaniment typical of the era.
The primary challenge is balancing the expressive melody against the harmonic accompaniment.
Comparable difficulty and character — good candidates for what to learn next.
Au pied du mur 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 Au pied du mur lasts about 3 minutes.
Au pied du mur 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 Berceuse by Désiré Dihau, Ballade de Noël by Désiré Dihau, 'Who Knows?' by Ernest Roland Ball — see the full similar-pieces list on this page.