Korobeiniki

About this arrangement

A Russian folk song, played here without words, in A minor and 2/4, two beats to a bar. The thumb starts on E and the tune climbs E, G sharp, B: the sharp is written in each time, because A minor raises its G to lead back home to A. Most bars are a dotted crotchet (dotted quarter note) and a quaver, or a crotchet and two quavers. The second half starts high, on the D above the C, so the hand moves up, and it has repeat signs: play it twice. The left hand plays a bass note and a chord on E, A minor and D minor.

Practice tip: Play it slowly at first, then a little faster each time you repeat it, the way Russian dancers speed up. Look for the G sharps in both hands before you begin.

A short history

Korobeiniki (The Pedlars) began as a poem by Nikolay Nekrasov, printed in the magazine Sovremennik in 1861. Korobeiniki were travelling pedlars who carried a box of cloth, ribbons and small wares from village to village, and the song opens with a pedlar boasting that his box is full and bargaining with a girl over what is in it.

Sung to a lively dance tune that gets faster as it goes, it quickly became one of the best-known Russian folk songs. Arrangements of it were published by Yakov Prigozhy and Alexander Chernyavsky in 1898, and the singer Varvara Panina recorded it from 1905.

We give it here as an instrumental, because the words exist in several versions and it is the tune that has travelled round the world.

Quick facts

Tune

Traditional (Russian, words Nikolay Nekrasov, 1861)

Key

A minor

Time signature

2/4

Length

16 bars

Tempo

Lively, crotchet = 96

Difficulty

Level 6: Moving on (piece 184 of 201)

Type

Folk song

Hands

Both: melody in the right hand, chords in the left

Copyright

Public domain tune; arrangement by Digital Greenhouse, free for personal and classroom use

Questions and answers