This piece utilizes common 19th-century salon tropes, relying on sweeping arpeggios and a flowing compound meter. It is a sentimental work designed to showcase tonal color and expressive playing.
The technical difficulty lies in maintaining a smooth, balanced tone across the arpeggiated accompaniment.
Comparable difficulty and character — good candidates for what to learn next.
Blue Bells (Op.23) 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 Blue Bells (Op.23) lasts about 4 minutes.
Blue Bells (Op.23) 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 'O sole mio by Eduardo Di Capua, Believe Me, If All those Endearing Young Charms by Irish Folk Music, Belle of the Ball by Leroy Anderson — see the full similar-pieces list on this page.