A bagatelle is a short piece of music, typically for the piano

Piano

The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...

, and usually of a light, mellow character. The name bagatelle literally means a "trifle", as a reference to the innocent character of the piece.

Earliest known bagatelle

The earliest use of the name "bagatelle" for a musical work was by François Couperin

François Couperin

François Couperin was a French Baroque composer, organist and harpsichordist. He was known as Couperin le Grand to distinguish him from other members of the musically talented Couperin family.-Life:Couperin was born in Paris...

, in his tenth harpsichord

Harpsichord

A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...

 ordre, in which a rondeau was entitled Les bagatelles.

Best-known bagatelles

The best-known bagatelles are probably those by Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

, who published three sets, Opp. 33, 119

Bagatelles, Opus 119 (Beethoven)

The Eleven Bagatelles, Op. 119 were written at various times by Ludwig van Beethoven between the 1790s and the early 1820s. By the end of 1803, he had already sketched nos. 1–5 . In 1820, he composed nos. 7–11 and published them as a set of five...

 and 126

Bagatelles, Opus 126 (Beethoven)

Ludwig van Beethoven's Bagatelles, Op. 126, dedicated to his brother Johann van Beethoven, were published late in his career, in the year 1825. A bagatelle, in Beethoven's usage, is a kind of brief character piece....

, and wrote a number of similar works that were unpublished in his lifetime including the piece that is popularly known as Für Elise

Für Elise

Bagatelle No. 25 in A minor for solo piano, commonly known as "Für Elise" , is one of Ludwig van Beethoven's most popular compositions. It is usually classified as a bagatelle, but it is also sometimes referred to as an Albumblatt.- History :The score was not published until 1867, 40 years after...

. Other notable examples are Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...

's Bagatelle sans tonalité

Bagatelle sans tonalité

Bagatelle sans tonalité is a piece for solo piano written by Franz Liszt in 1885. The manuscript bears the title "Fourth Mephisto Waltz" and may have been intended to replace the piece now known as the Fourth Mephisto Waltz when it appeared Liszt would not be able to finish it; the phrase...

(an early exploration into atonality

Atonality

Atonality in its broadest sense describes music that lacks a tonal center, or key. Atonality in this sense usually describes compositions written from about 1908 to the present day where a hierarchy of pitches focusing on a single, central tone is not used, and the notes of the chromatic scale...

), a set for violin and piano (Op. 13) by François Schubert

François Schubert

François Schubert was a violinist and composer in Dresden....

 of which No. 9, The Bee, is often performed, the set by Antonín Dvořák

Antonín Dvorák

Antonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer of late Romantic music, who employed the idioms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. Dvořák’s own style is sometimes called "romantic-classicist synthesis". His works include symphonic, choral and chamber music, concerti, operas and many...

 for two violin

Violin

The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

s, cello

Cello

The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...

 and harmonium

Harmonium

A harmonium is a free-standing keyboard instrument similar to a reed organ. Sound is produced by air being blown through sets of free reeds, resulting in a sound similar to that of an accordion...

 (Op. 47), and sets by Bedřich Smetana

Bedrich Smetana

Bedřich Smetana was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style which became closely identified with his country's aspirations to independent statehood. He is thus widely regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music...

, Alexander Tcherepnin

Alexander Tcherepnin

Alexander Nikolayevich Tcherepnin was a Russian-born composer and pianist. His father, Nikolai Tcherepnin and his son, Ivan Tcherepnin were also composers, as are two of his grandsons, Sergei and Stefan. His son Serge was involved in the roots of electronic music and instruments...

 and Jean Sibelius

Jean Sibelius

Jean Sibelius was a Finnish composer of the later Romantic period whose music played an important role in the formation of the Finnish national identity. His mastery of the orchestra has been described as "prodigious."...

. Anton Diabelli

Anton Diabelli

Anton Diabelli was an Austrian music publisher, editor and composer of Italian descent. Best known in his time as a publisher, he is most familiar today as the composer of the waltz on which Ludwig van Beethoven wrote his set of thirty-three Diabelli Variations.-Early life:Diabelli was born in...

 also wrote a bagatelle in a short, happy form. Camille Saint-Saëns

Camille Saint-Saëns

Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...

 wrote Six Bagatelles, Op. 3, and Friedrich Baumfelder

Friedrich Baumfelder

Friedrich August Wilhelm Baumfelder was a German composer of classical music, conductor, and pianist. He started in the Leipzig Conservatory, and went on to become a well-known composer of his time. His many works were mostly solo salon music, but also included symphonies, piano concertos, operas,...

 also wrote just one bagatelle, Op.386, which was composed in his later years.

In the 20th century, several composers have written sets of bagatelles, including Béla Bartók

Béla Bartók

Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...

, who wrote a set of fourteen (Op. 6); Anton Webern

Anton Webern

Anton Webern was an Austrian composer and conductor. He was a member of the Second Viennese School. As a student and significant follower of Arnold Schoenberg, he became one of the best-known exponents of the twelve-tone technique; in addition, his innovations regarding schematic organization of...

, who wrote a set of six for string quartet

String quartet

A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...

 (Op. 9); and Gerald Finzi

Gerald Finzi

Gerald Raphael Finzi was a British composer. Finzi is best known as a song-writer, but also wrote in other genres...

, who wrote Five Bagatelles for clarinet and piano. Another canonical modern bagatelle is the set by György Ligeti

György Ligeti

György Sándor Ligeti was a composer of contemporary classical music. Born in a Hungarian Jewish family in Transylvania, Romania, he briefly lived in Hungary before becoming an Austrian citizen.-Early life:...

, who originally composed a set of 11 short works for piano entitled 'Musica Ricercata' (1951-1953), later arranged a selection of them for wind quintet in 1953 (Six Bagatelles for Wind Quintet).

The Northern Irish

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...

 composer Howard Ferguson

Howard Ferguson (composer)

Howard Ferguson was a British composer and musicologist. He composed instrumental, chamber, orchestral and choral works. While his music is not widely-known today, his Piano Sonata in F Minor and his Five Bagatelles for piano are still performed...

 wrote a set of Five Bagatelles for piano (Op. 9), which, along with his Piano Sonata

Piano sonata

A piano sonata is a sonata written for a solo piano. Piano sonatas are usually written in three or four movements, although some piano sonatas have been written with a single movement , two movements , five or even more movements...

 in F minor

F minor

F minor is a minor scale based on F, consisting of the pitches F, G, A, B, C, D, and E. The harmonic minor raises the E to E. Its key signature has four flats ....

, are among the composer's few regularly performed works. William Walton

William Walton

Sir William Turner Walton OM was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera...

 also wrote Five Bagatelles for guitar, which have been recorded by several eminent classical guitarists, including Julian Bream

Julian Bream

Julian Bream, CBE is an English classical guitarist and lutenist and is one of the most distinguished classical guitarists of the 20th century. He has also been successful in renewing popular interest in the Renaissance lute....

, Sharon Isbin

Sharon Isbin

Sharon Isbin is a widely-recorded American classical guitarist, recording artist, concertizer, and the founder of the Guitar Department at the Juilliard School.-Early life and education:...

, Christopher Parkening

Christopher Parkening

Christopher Parkening is an American classical guitarist.Parkening was born in Los Angeles, California, and pursued music in part because of his cousin Jack Marshall, a studio musician in the 1960s. Marshall first introduced Parkening to the recordings of Andrés Segovia when he was 11, and...

, and Ana Vidović

Ana Vidovic

Ana Vidović is a Croatian virtuoso classical guitarist. A child prodigy, she started playing guitar at the age of five, inspired by her brother Viktor...

. The American composer Charles Wuorinen

Charles Wuorinen

Charles Peter Wuorinen is a prolific Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer born and living in New York City. His catalog of more than 250 compositions includes works for orchestra, opera, chamber music, as well as solo instrumental and vocal works...

 wrote a Bagatelle for solo piano, which he later orchestrated. The Australian composer Carl Vine

Carl Vine

Carl Vine is an Australian composer of contemporary classical music.-Career:Vine was born in Perth, Western Australia. When he was ten years old, he took up the piano. An adolescent encounter with Karlheinz Stockhausen inspired a period as a teenage modernist, a direction which he abandoned in 1985...

 also wrote Five Bagatelles for piano (1994), which are quite frequently performed at piano competitions, especially in Australia. Peruvian composer Jorge Villavicencio Grossmann also wrote Cinco Bagatelas Opacas y Traslucidas for violin and piano (also existing in a trio version with bass clarinet

Bass clarinet

The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B , but it plays notes an octave below the soprano B clarinet...

.