Old French Song · piano sheet music & MIDI file
Tchaikovsky's Old French Song as a free MIDI: its gentle melancholy plays in the preview, piano file and sheet music PDF included.
Preview played right in your browser with the app's real piano (lightweight version). Inside Pianovera: full multi-layer sound, fingering display and Wait mode.
In his Album for the Young, Tchaikovsky takes children traveling: a Neapolitan song, a German one, a Russian one... and this "old French song" in G minor, so well felt that he reused it in his opera The Maid of Orleans. A simple melody, a 188-note MIDI, that sounds like a very old memory.
It's one of the most beautiful slow pieces you can hand a beginner: a melody to sing, a left hand in discreet counterpoint, and a phrasing lesson in every line. No technical traps, but one demand: it has to sing, or nothing is left.
What you'll be working on
- A legato melody singing from end to end
- The left hand as counterpoint, melodic in its own right
- The twin phrases: same start, different endings
- Restraint: melancholy, never tearful
Playing Old French Song on piano with Pianovera
Show both hand colors in Pianovera and notice how the left answers the right: it's a duet, not melody-plus-chords. Wait mode lets you place each answer at your own pace.
Open Old French Song in Pianovera: notes fall toward the keyboard, each hand gets its color, and Wait mode is there if you're starting out.
Try Pianovera for freeDownload the Old French Song MIDI and sheet music
Two files are waiting for you: the Old French Song piano MIDI file (2 KB, opens in Pianovera or any MIDI player) and the Old French Song piano sheet music PDF (160 KB, printable). Both come from the same engraving: what you read on the score is exactly what you hear in the preview.
The work itself is in the public domain, and this MIDI engraving was placed in the public domain by its typesetter on the Mutopia Project. Use it freely, videos included.
About this piece
Is Old French Song hard to play on piano?
We rate it beginner: 188 notes over 0:55, spanning G2 to F5. The first thing to work on: a legato melody singing from end to end.
Where can I get the sheet music for Old French Song?
Right on this page: the "View the sheet music" button opens the PDF (160 KB), engraved by the Mutopia Project from the same source as the MIDI file, Public domain license. View it, print it, keep it.
Is the Old French Song MIDI file really free?
Yes. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky died more than 70 years ago, so the work (1878) is public domain. This MIDI engraving is public domain too: download it and use it freely, videos included.