A contemporary work utilizing the pentatonic scale to explore canon form on the piano. It balances exotic tonal colors with academic contrapuntal rigor.
Focus on maintaining evenness of touch while navigating the pentatonic intervals in both hands.
Comparable difficulty and character — good candidates for what to learn next.
Canone sulla scala cinese per pianoforte 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 Canone sulla scala cinese per pianoforte lasts about 2 minutes.
Canone sulla scala cinese per pianoforte 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 Blue waltz by Marco Ciannella, Cathedral Prelude by Joseph Waddell Clokey, CMYK by Óscar Garrido de la Rosa — see the full similar-pieces list on this page.