In this video we're going to do from Dmitri Kabalevsky "Lullaby." This lullaby is like a dream — a very dreamy atmosphere. It's like a little story in a dream. That's how it should be played and performed. It's a nice piece to work on, to have this esoteric sound quality and a cantabile melody.
Also we learn the independence of left and right, the switching of the melody between first the right hand, and then it comes back in the left hand. The notes are not very complex.
Dmitri Kabalevsky wrote not only children's pieces. He wrote beautiful piano sonatas. Vladimir Horowitz recorded a few of them — brilliant pieces, certainly no less genius than the Prokofiev Sonatas. Each of those pieces from the children's album has elements to learn for not only beginners but also intermediate players.
The character and the way the piece is written — it could be a little prelude of Shostakovich. Dreamy atmosphere in the left hand. So I would really work to make these little movements here, little arm movements, to make it supple and smooth. Take the weight out of the keys. Concentrated fingers. And I have this beautiful circle. And then Mezzo Piano, that is for the melody. Moderato cantabile — a moderate tempo with a singing tone, particularly in the melody.
Search for the sound, deep. Portato mark here. The arm movement is: go up and down, and up, and then up — one movement. See, I will write the movement in the score, so when you download it you can nicely see the arm movements.
The pedal is one pedal at the beginning, and half pedal where the harmony doesn't change and the melody doesn't require it. When the harmony changes it needs a whole pedal.
Here the melody takes over in the left hand. Forte! Crescendo! And here the pedal follows the left hand.
It's a beautiful piece to work on. The smoothness of broken seventh chords, a beautiful smooth sound, and in the same time a cantabile melody, which changes between the different hands.
Dmitri Kabalevsky is sometimes dismissed as beginner material. That is a mistake. His piano sonatas were recorded by Horowitz — they are brilliant pieces, no less sophisticated than the Prokofiev sonatas. And even the children's album, Op. 27, carries technical and musical challenges that reward players at every level.
The Lullaby (Op. 27, No. 16) is a tone study in disguise. The notes are not the difficulty. The difficulty is the sound: achieving a dreamy, esoteric quality throughout, balancing a cantabile melody against a gentle broken-chord accompaniment, and handling the transfer of the melody from right hand to left — which requires a different touch from each hand simultaneously.
The art of soft playing is the philosophical ground this piece works on. The Lullaby is a sustained application of that principle.
The Character: Dreamy, Cantabile, Esoteric
This lullaby is like a dream. Not a comfortable sleep, but something more atmospheric — like a little story in a dream. The character should pervade every note, from the first bar to the last.
That character comes primarily from the left hand. The broken seventh chords in the accompaniment must move with a gentle, circular arm movement — not mechanical, not metronomic, but slightly undulating, as if breathing. Small arm movements that take weight out of the keys after each note lands. Concentrated fingers, but the wrist free. This is the sound Kabalevsky marks Moderato cantabile — moderate tempo, singing tone.
The piece could be a prelude by Shostakovich. It sits in that dreamlike, slightly desolate sound world.
Melody Shaping and Cantabile Touch
The melody in the right hand should sing above the accompaniment. Cantabile is not a feeling — it is a physical technique. The melody note needs a slightly deeper, more weighted touch than the accompaniment notes. Not louder in a blunt sense, but more present — as if the finger is reaching into the key rather than striking it from above.
The arm weight shifts slightly to the melody notes. The finger carrying the melody leans in; the others support without dominating.
Search for the sound. Listen. Try the gesture, hear the result, adjust. The process I describe in the video is: feel it in your arms and your muscles, and listen to what you get back. This interactive feedback loop — feel, listen, feel again — is what actually builds tone control. No amount of correct positioning will replace it.
Wrist position and tone quality is the technical explanation for why a free, naturally low wrist produces a warmer sound. The Lullaby is the practical application of that principle.
The Portato Passages and Arm Movement
Kabalevsky marks several moments portato — a touch between legato and staccato, slightly separated, with a sense of weight on each note. The arm movement for these passages is specific: up, and down, and up — one continuous arc rather than separate individual movements.
The arm carries the weight. The fingers concentrate but do not force. After each portato note, the arm lifts gently before settling into the next. Write these arm movements into your score. Seeing them on the page helps the hand internalize the gesture rather than guessing on each repetition.
Arm weight in tone production explains the underlying mechanism: how arm weight applied through concentrated fingers produces a richer sound than force applied from the fingers alone.
The Melody Transfer: Right Hand to Left
The middle section brings the melody into the left hand. This is technically demanding in a specific way: the left hand must now carry the cantabile line while the right hand takes the accompaniment role. The hands have to swap their touch quality mid-piece.
Forte and crescendo here. The left-hand melody needs weight and presence. The right hand's accompaniment must drop back — lighter, more transparent, supporting rather than competing.
In the third line, the dynamic drops to pianissimo. The tone becomes even more desolate and concentrated. The middle voice — which Kabalevsky writes with special care — needs to come through without the melody losing its line.
To bring out the middle voice, I suggest a slightly more vertical second finger and a weight shift toward the right side of the hand. This is not easy. But this is the beauty of it.
Pedaling
The pedal follows a simple rule with one exception: change per bar when the harmony changes, and use half pedal where the harmony does not change and the melody does not require a full change.
In the climactic passage where the melody is in the left hand, the pedal follows the left hand — per quarter note. This is the moment where the bass line is also the melodic line, so the pedal tracks it rather than the right hand.
In the final two chords, hold one pedal through both. This is the only moment of overlapping pedal in the piece, and it is what gives the ending its resonance.
The Whole Picture
The smoothness of the broken seventh chords. A cantabile melody that changes hands. A three-section arc from dreamy opening through a fortissimo climax and back to pianissimo close. Arm movements written into the score that tell you where the weight goes and when it lifts.
This piece teaches in concentrated form what all piano playing aims at: the coordination of touch, weight, and phrase shaping to produce a specific sound quality — not just correct notes, but the right atmosphere. Why a melody still doesn't sing addresses the cases where the technique is there but the sound is not landing. And a broader conversation on what it means to shape musical color — the colors of sound, as I put it — is in the conversation on music and painting.
