Rating the pain level of piano pieces

Clementi Op. 36 No. 3 - 0/10
PSA: The third movement only sounds good Presto if you play it well fast. Listen here

Schubert E-flat Impromptu - 2/10
It's not hard at all notes wise but it does take a bit of stamina to keep the triplets going for so long! Listen here

Haydn D Major Concerto - 3/10
Easy to learn, harder to play well. Still one of the easiest piano concertos though. 4/10 if you have to play it for a competition. Listen here

Chopin Aeolian Harp Etude - 3/10
5-6 polyrhythm is annoying. It's also a bit hard to voice while still making the whole thing light and airy. Listen here

Chopin Fantasie-Impromptu - 9.5/10
The offbeat accents, polyrhythm, speed, awkward turns...AAAAAAA Listen here

Lizst Erlkonig - 15/10
Fast, repeated octaves for a piece with a run length way too long for regular stamina? And still having to shape and phrase the whole thing? Why, Lizst? WHY? Listen here

Send me more sheet music to rate and/or drop your own takes below! Keep in mind I haven't played all of these pieces haha so I may be wrong on some :)

You must play a lot of piano to say that first one is 0/10. I've been playing for years, and my left hand can still only do octaves!

Haha nah just enough to graduate my state's music examinations this year and be finally free :)

Don't let those skills leave you though! Music is a powerful thing!

@cska_moscou I hereby summon you! ;)

@greenteakitten said in #5:

@cska_moscou I hereby summon you! ;)

Almost any Piano piece from Maurice Ravel already deserve to be at least 15/10 in terms of difficulty. Very difficult to understand to play well, in matter of rhythms, character, or everything you need to focus on. I'm thinking about the "Sonatine", "Jeux d'eau", "Scarbo" (In "Gaspard de la nuit").

"Islamey" by Balakirev is also really difficult, it's a Lizstian difficulty, so I'm rating it 15/10 also.

Clara Wieck/Schuman : Concerto in A minor : 35/10

A really difficult concerto still today, at her time, it was probably one the most difficult concerto of the piano repertory. Here a version that I like,

https://youtu.be/DrbBJWOqFEw?si=0YaQ2NWKkPIWi8ys

I find this interpretation very respectful of this masterpiece, and in my opinion, is more about showing the musicality of the piano part, than just the technical, virtuoso side, unlike in Buniashvili or Yuja Wang versions of this piece, even though these are great interpretation also.

@greenteakitten said in #1:

Clementi Op. 36 No. 3 - 0/10
PSA: The third movement only sounds good Presto if you play it well fast. Listen here

Schubert E-flat Impromptu - 2/10
It's not hard at all notes wise but it does take a bit of stamina to keep the triplets going for so long! Listen here

Haydn D Major Concerto - 3/10
Easy to learn, harder to play well. Still one of the easiest piano concertos though. 4/10 if you have to play it for a competition. Listen here

Chopin Aeolian Harp Etude - 3/10
5-6 polyrhythm is annoying. It's also a bit hard to voice while still making the whole thing light and airy. Listen here

Chopin Fantasie-Impromptu - 9.5/10
The offbeat accents, polyrhythm, speed, awkward turns...AAAAAAA Listen here

Lizst Erlkonig - 15/10
Fast, repeated octaves for a piece with a run length way too long for regular stamina? And still having to shape and phrase the whole thing? Why, Lizst? WHY? Listen here

Send me more sheet music to rate and/or drop your own takes below! Keep in mind I haven't played all of these pieces haha so I may be wrong on some :)

In fact I am playing diploma piano and I am playing Chopin fantasie impromptu op.66 and I kinda agree with u but when u get the hang of it it rlly easy :)

@greenteakitten said in #1:

Chopin Aeolian Harp Etude - 3/10
5-6 polyrhythm is annoying. It's also a bit hard to voice while still making the whole thing light and airy.

Oh god, what polyrhythm? Nooo! It's ok if your thumbs meet in the middle.

A side note: in Chopin's homeland people really roll their eyes at these titles and nicknames, and they have a point. "Etude in A-flat major" is better, or you might actually offend somebody. A professor grading you, for example.

@MusicGarlic
Yeah, it's the editors who got this idea of giving names to the Etudes, Chopin was against this conception of music, even though these names are pretty nice. I believe that Beethoven also complained once when one of his editors gave some narrative title to some of his early sonates

@MusicGarlic said in #8:

Oh god, what polyrhythm? Nooo! It's ok if your thumbs meet in the middle.

I ended up doing it on a 2/3 for the first half and then together for the second half, idk if that makes any sense haha

A side note: in Chopin's homeland people really roll their eyes at these titles and nicknames, and they have a point. "Etude in A-flat major" is better, or you might actually offend somebody. A professor grading you, for example.

In my defense, I momentarily forgot the real name and nicknames are usually more recognizable! But yeah, totally get what you mean :)