A contemporary short chorale composition emphasizing vertical harmony and clear melodic lines. It serves as an accessible study in sustained tone and choral-style phrasing.
At Henle 3 this is a late-beginner piece — comfortable hands-together playing is assumed, and musical shaping starts to matter. The main demands: a true singing tone, with the melody floating above the accompaniment; chord voicing — bringing out one note inside a handful of others; and precise articulation — the difference between crisp and blurred is the piece.
The primary challenge is ensuring equal weight in the inner voices while projecting the soprano melody.
Comparable difficulty and character — good candidates for what to learn next.
A level or two down with the same spirit — ideal if this piece is still out of reach.
Where this piece's skills lead: slightly harder works making similar technical demands.
Lesser-known works by the same hand, at a comparable level.
Chorale No. 5 is rated Henle level 3 of 9 — late beginner repertoire, roughly ABRSM grades 4–5. In the RCM system it corresponds to about level 3.
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 Chorale No. 5 lasts about 2 minutes.
Chorale No. 5 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 Chorale No. 2 by Anish Dhanrajani, Chorale in B-flat major by Anish Dhanrajani, Chorale and Variations by Anish Dhanrajani — see the full similar-pieces list on this page.