The Devonshire Polka is a charming salon piece composed by Anna Caroline Oury, a renowned 19th-century pianist. It features lighthearted melodies set against standard accompaniment patterns typical of the period.
At Henle 3 this is a late-beginner piece — comfortable hands-together playing is assumed, and musical shaping starts to matter. The main demands: Alberti-bass accompaniment kept quiet and even under the melody; precise articulation — the difference between crisp and blurred is the piece; and continuous sixteenth-note figuration that must ripple, not chatter.
The main challenge is maintaining a light, graceful touch in the right-hand passagework.
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.
Devonshire Polka 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 Devonshire Polka lasts about 3 minutes.
Devonshire Polka 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 The Entertainer by Scott Joplin, Waltz No. 2 by Dmitri Shostakovich, Binks' Waltz by Scott Joplin — see the full similar-pieces list on this page.