A contemporary character piece by Daniel Léo Simpson that draws on Romantic tropes. It features lush, expressive melodic lines contrasted with a more flowing harmonic accompaniment.
Focus on balancing the melody against the accompaniment to achieve a singing tone.
Comparable difficulty and character — good candidates for what to learn next.
Bright Flame 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 Bright Flame lasts about 4 minutes.
Bright Flame 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 Boulevard Blues by Daniel Léo Simpson, Blue Jeans by Daniel Léo Simpson, Berceuse by Daniel Léo Simpson — see the full similar-pieces list on this page.