A salon piece that exemplifies the Romantic fascination with nature and nocturnal imagery. It is distinctive for its flowing, rolling accompaniment figures that support a delicate, song-like melody.
Achieve a seamless balance between the melodic voice and the surrounding harmonic texture.
Comparable difficulty and character — good candidates for what to learn next.
By Moonlight is rated Henle level 4 of 9 — intermediate repertoire, roughly ABRSM grades 5–6. In the RCM system it corresponds to about level 7.
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 By Moonlight lasts about 5 minutes.
By Moonlight 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 Berg-Idylle by Franz Bendel, Nocturne in E-flat major, No. 2 by Frédéric Chopin, Berceuse by Gabriel Fauré — see the full similar-pieces list on this page.