Noctave
The piece
An arabesque is a line that curls back on itself, and Burgmüller takes the word almost literally: a five-note cell, four slurred sixteenths and a staccato eighth, climbing one step higher each time it returns. Born in Germany and settled in Paris from 1832, he gave his 25 Easy and Progressive Studies, Op. 100, French titles and sharply drawn characters. This one, marked Allegro scherzando, is after mischief more than raw speed.
The motion to find is a drop and a lift: let your weight fall into the first sixteenth, let the next three run off, and lift the hand on the staccato eighth. The left-hand chords stay short and dry and never cover the figure. In the middle section, marked forte, the roles swap and the left hand takes the cell down in the bass, under the right-hand tune; it carries 63% of the notes overall. Practise it alone until its sixteenths are as even as the right hand's, the same evenness the closing descent in octaves calls for.