Retired pianist here. This is a fun topic since it opens up so much discussion. However, ranking difficulty is quite a thorny and nuanced subject. Difficulty can be looked at with at least three major lenses: there's musical/intellectual difficulty (how hard it is to understand and produce a convincing interpretation), physical performance difficulty (how hard it is physically on the fingers, hands, and wrists), and stamina difficulty for the mental or physical endurance needed, especially in longer works. Older composers like Alkan and Liszt may be very physically demanding, but musically they are very approachable and generally easy enough for most people to grasp. Speaking of Liszt, his most overall difficult work (much more than his sonata) is arguably his transcription of Beethoven's Symphony 9. It's rarely discussed or performed. Very few ever recorded it since it's just that hard, especially for the tremendous endurance required. Cyprien Katsaris has no competition with his highly recommended excellent recording of it. Berlioz-Liszt Symphonie Fantastique also vies for the top spot since it is another endurance monster at nearly an hour. Once we get to the late 1910s/early 1920s with composers like Ives and Roslavets, many listeners' ears start to check out or get left behind. Composers that followed like Sorabji 1930s, Messiaen 1940s, Stockhausen 1950s, Xenakis 1960s, Crumb and Finnissy 1970s, Ferneyhough and Hamelin 1980s, Barrett 1990s, Ligeti 2000s, all contributed insanely difficult works. Some freakishly so that border on absurdity. Many of these modern works can easily be far too abstract and completely go over most casual listeners' heads. A good deal of it also is on a spectrum of being somewhat random sounding to nearly fully mathematically "random" (where if you hit a wrong note absolutely no one would ever know except the composer). If so few listeners know you are making errors, its rank of difficulty is surely blurred and adds complexity to the discussion. Ryan, since you mostly discuss and appreciate tonal pieces that are more friendly on the ears, I'd say the hardest solo piece I've ever studied that still is very tonal, still very clearly structured, and still friendly enough to the ears (though still incredibly challenging) is Scriabin's magnificent masterpiece, the 8th sonata (1913). I would overall describe No. 8 as a sorcerer/art shaman putting you in a magical ultraviolet trance (starts off slow and hypnotic) and then begins to carry you off on an epic visionary journey into exotic otherworldly realms across the cosmos. For me, it's the very last gasp of Romanticism despite it clearly being early modern. Nothing about this sonata is "easy" to play well. Even the seemingly easiest part- the slow intro, has up to 5 distinct counterpoint voices going on at once on three staves. It probably gets my personal vote for being (in at least some ways) the hardest single solo piano work up to 1915 (especially in a work that doesn't exceed 15 minutes) to pull off. Because there are so few instructions in the score, pianists generally take the "easiest" road they can, so many recordings are slow and wimpy...and they miss the point. No one has ever played the climax full prestissimo as he asks, which is likely not humanly possible. It is in the stratosphere in more ways than one. And unlike some of the more modern music that followed Scriabin, if you hit a single wrong note most unfamiliar listeners would still easily tell. No hiding! Anyway, that's my vote. It's fun to geek-out on such lists but obviously, there is no ultimate correct answer as it depends on too many personal variables. Have a great week everyone.
A very informative comment! I found Scriabin's 8th sonata difficult to learn/memorize, but not *that* hard overall. Not that I played it perfectly, but it's not bad either (I have a performance on my channel). On the other hand, I found the Hammerklavier 4th movement more difficult and I don't know whether I'd ever have the guts to perform that thing live...
@@pavlenikacevic4976 Thank you for the kind words and for sharing your experience. Wow, I warmly salute you for even attempting the mighty 8th! It doesn't get too much love so that's very cool of you and I put you in a special category of awesome. I look forward to listening to your recording. Not to sound deeply presumptuous, but not finding the work overly difficult makes me right off the bat think your tempo is probably quite slow in the many difficult passages. No shame in that, I have over 30 recordings of this work and most of them are understandably slowish. But if you play this work with vigor, for example, in the climax at the blazing speeds he asks, it becomes near impossible. Of the 30 recordings, the vast majority play this final section moderato at best, a few allegro, and only one vivace! No one can play it continuously presto let alone the listed prestissimo (the fastest tempo marking there is). It's just too hard and may not be even possible. Regarding the Hammerklavier 4th movement, I agree it is quite an intimidating work...which for Beethoven was kind of its intention. It's probably his most difficult sonata technically (with Opus 111 the hardest musically). Nevertheless, it is still much easier technically than the 8th Sonata and the notes mostly fall well in the hands and wrists. Its difficulty is primarily in the brilliant music itself, and it shares some of that labyrinthine and ecstatic quality of the eighth sonata. So many twists and turns, much of it very Baroque and fugue-like, and it takes many listenings to make sense. Here is the big secret with this 4th movement: always focus on the main voice and don't get lost in the filigree "backup singers" which is maybe what is throwing you off. Be like a hawk and no matter how busy it gets, follow where and what the main voice is doing. This will give you your structure and is half the battle won right there. Wishing you the best and hope you have an inspired week brother. Big high-five from NY!
I was going to comment about Scriabin's 8th sonata, and then I started reading this, and lo and behold! Thanks for bringing attention to it as it's one of the greatest pieces of music I've ever heard.
To your list of three major criteria of difficulty, you might add a fourth --how hard is it to listen to? Very stiff competition there. Don't understand me wrong. I'm not suggesting not trying. Science tells us that it's actually better for your brain to listen to music you don't like : )
What about Rachmaninoff?? 😮 He composed some or the most difficult repitoire by far, piano concertos and etudes. Also what about Chopin's 3rd sonata, that's very difficult
Yes, Rach 3 is renowned as one of the grandest and most technically difficult piano concertos ever. Max Reger's sets of variations on themes by Beethoven and Telemann also come to mind.
The pieces you listed are definitely very hard, but a long way from hardest. Some pieces that come to mind are: Alkan Concerto for Solo Piano Berlioz/Liszt Symphonie Fantastique Transcription Beethoven/Liszt Symphony Transcriptions (notably 9) Busoni Piano Concerto Godowsky Java Suite Chopin/Godowsky Studies Ives Concord Sonata Szymanowski 3rd Sonata Feinberg 3rd Sonata Scriabin 8th Sonata Busoni Contrappuntistica Reger/Bach Variations and Fugue The list goes on and on Only put the more "accessible" pieces and not any of the "new complexity" stuff for obvious reasons.
Even if we're just talking about the standard repertoire there are so many pieces in the standard repertoire that deserve to be here over Liszt B minor Sonata, Chopin ballade 4, and Schubert Wanderer Fantasy. Not sure what Scriabin 8 is doing on that list though. That’s really not that difficult, or at least without a doubt easier than hammerklavier and gaspard and everything else on your list.
Well that's way too general. "Rach etudes" are definitely not amongst the most difficult pieces, especially not op. 33. I would say the same for czerny etudes and scriabin etudes.
Chopin variation with leaps in Variations on Là ci darem la mano Op 2 wins over all these Pieces, even against Godowsky' s Etudes, or Sorabji. Try to play It, without pedal as It Is written.
Really great list. Funny to me how Brahms dissed Liszt for being too showy and only technical yet he wrote 2 Paganini variations and a crazy book of exercises, and his concerto 2 is fiendishly difficult 😂
@@eddydelrio1303 Such a brilliant piece of music, possibly one of the most underplayed great works. I had the privilege to study it with Mark Clinton who had studied with the great Leon Fleisher. I remember Mark telling me "this is the kind of piece you can return to every 10 years and still improve it." Coming from someone who was better at age 15 than most people will ever be, this means a lot.
I think Liszt’s B minor piano sonata, when played with all the feeling and passion possible, can be breathtakingly beautiful music. And the ending, which Liszt decided to end on the minor, takes music to a new height of romantic expression. It reaches outward and asunder to another world. But, as you say, there are other perhaps more difficult pieces.
Liszt's B minor sonata is notable more for its compositional brilliance than its difficulty to perform. It is literally lauded by consensus as the composer's magnum opus. Liszt's most difficult work to perform is most likely his Spanish Fantasy, S. 253.
I don't disagree, I love every piece on the list (that's how I narrowed down the pieces), but there are many who feel Liszt was one of the worst composers and was only flash and flair. These people think his inability to craft a piece makes his long form less good. Just giving their perspective, not that I agree with it. You can just look at my personal tierlist video and see a bunch of Liszt hate. Many were confused that I put him so high, they wanted him near the bottom. About the Brahms story, I just discovered that recently. My views on the Liszt opinions were more formed in college years where I heard a bunch of love and a bunch of hate. Many pros think he is the ultimate pianist, and many think he's weak and only exels in short flashy pieces. Not my opinion, but it is an opinion.
Actually, I was also thinking of the Don Juan as several steps more technically difficult that the Sonata in b minor, not that I don't think the Sonata is one of Liszt's greatest works.
I would argue his transcription on beethoven 9 is more difficult, but at this point it doesn't even matter because all that shit is pretty much impossible to play lmao
That’s true! I’ve never met a pianist who does not love the b minor sonata. I recently had the privilege to hear Illia Ovcharenko perform it in recital - truly divine!
The most difficult piece that is TONAL and in the Romantic idiom is probably Godowsky's Passacaglia on a theme by Schubert. Godowsky's writing is very dense, contrapuntal, super virtuosic - but it's also very accessible and pleasant on a more superficial level too. Alkan is of course legendary too - and his music is like Liszt in that it requires a lot of "athletic virtuosity" - but Godowsky is the absolute peak of Romantic Piano - his music is really virtuosic in "athletic" ways but ALSO is so complex - really rich like a multi-layered cake. So in terms of music that I think has WIDE appeal and Romantic-style musical material - I'd say Godowsky is the top composer in terms of difficulty - and the Passacaglia is his most challenging work (asides from the complete studies on Chopin etudes!). I recommend recordings by Marc-Andre Hamelin - and also recommend the complete solo piano works by Godowsky - recorded by Konstantin Scherbakov. One of the biggest achievements in recorded music really, up there with Leslie Howard doing all of Liszt!
Busoni's piano concerto may be harder than anything Alkan ever wrote, and is definitely up there with Godowsky as both extremely technically (and physically) demanding but also quite accessible to the listener.
Sorabji - Gulistan It is a 30 minute or so nocturne that is pretty despite the sheer amount of notes, sight reading challenge, and technical demand on part of the pianist to perform.
@louise_rose the multiple hour long works are indeed super difficult but not really practical to learn. I imagine most of those will never be realized by an actual pianist. Unless they are a bit crazy and have some freakish stamina lol
Additional interesting and difficult piano music worth checking out would be the etude The Devil's Staircase by György Ligeti, Concord Sonata by Charles Ives, and Symphonie for solo piano by Charles-Valentin Alkan.
I actually don't think The Devil's Staircase is the hardest Etude of that cycle. Automne a Varsovie seems to be the hardest both on a technical and intellectual level. Vertige and Coloana infinita seem like the most challenging from a purely technical perspective.
Pieces that come to mind for me when I hear "most difficult": Bartok - Concerto no. 2 Messiaen - Vingt Regards Ligeti - Etudes Ives - Sonata No. 2 Alkan - Trois Grandes Etudes Busoni - Fantasia Contrappuntistica Liszt - Paganini Etudes And really any new complexity piece
Beethoven: Hammerklavier, Diabelli Variations and Archduke Trio Schubert: Wanderer Chopin: 3rd Sonata Schumann: Toccata Liszt: Transcendental Etudes (as a set, one after the other), Don Juan, Guillaume Tell paraphrase Tchaikovsky: Piano trio Brahms: Paganini Variations (much much harder than the Händel variations) and second concerto Stravinsky: Petrushka Bartok: etudes, concertos, sonata, pretty much everything Prokofiev: second concerto, sonata n. 8 Ravel: Gaspard, Miroirs, Trio Rachmaninov: 3rd concerto Alkan: …(hold my beer)… Busoni: concerto Sorabij: Opus Clavicembalisticum Godowsky: the three Symphonic metamorphosis on Strauß waltzes, Chopin Etudes Shostakovich: preludes and fugues Messiaen: vingt regards Albeniz: Iberia And so much more (Stockhausen etc. etc.)
Having read may many ost of these comments, I must say that I do agree with a good deal of the ones already mentioned that fall into the HARD category. The one major omission that really surprises me is the one movement work Rudepoema by Villa-Lobos which is reputed by many to qualify for most difficult of piano works that require a precise rhythmic sense and terrifying rapid leaps and the ability to juggle massive sonorities
@@Calisthincenjoyer I don't like the fugue that much, but the rest of it is incredible! Even Hamelin made a recording of it, you should really go listen to it
@@markdecker2112 it was the first piece off. I made a bigger list and cut it down to this. Obviously some tough choices and that was the last one before I stopped cutting.
Of the ‘normal’ cannon (so I’m excluding Sorabji and other similar monster works/composers), two I would put at or near the top are Ives’ Concord Sonata and Messiaen’s Vingt Regardes. Both fantastic works, but incredibly complex and long. Honorable mention to Busoni’s Fantasia Contrappuntistica
I would say that the fourth scherzo probably beats out the fourth Ballade by Chopin. The Ballade's coda is definitely difficult, but overall i think the scherzo is more technically challenging
This guy has the most pianistic takes and picks. Truly real opinions of real pianists, and not a Moonlight Sonata glazer. Give this man a Steinway! You have my respect, and you also earned a new subscriber. Continue like this. I love your channel.
@@chironchiron5053 thanks a bunch for the kind words. I really want this to be a fun channel with real perspectives/thoughts from a real classical musician, not just a "react to videos and give generic AI takes" channel And also I'll take the Steinway if anyone is offering 🤣
@@ryanabshier thanks about the thumbnail. Yeah, you actually have opinions that I respect, and not just listening to Google and ‘classical channels’’s trash takes. Also if I was a millionaire I’d give a Steinway but I don’t have one either LOL
Thumbs up because they don't only have to be difficult but have to be "pleasant" to listen to also. There's a lot of stuff out there that is almost unplayable that also is just more of an exercise in difficulty than musically significant.
Which Schumann piece would you select for the list? Symphonic etudes, kreisleriana, or carnival? I have another candidate for you: Enrique Granados, Goyescas. A true masterpiece, and very, very difficult.
I know. The list I'm referring to was bad in general. Things like Tempest sonata, haha. No disrespect, it's a great challenge to play well, but easily 5-10 Beethoven sonatas are harder, maybe more. The Chopin Eb nocturne was the most wild though.
The last movement of Rach2 and the entire Rach3 are fiendishly difficult to play, yet they are one of the most breathtakingly beautiful gems of the romantic repertoire. They should not be missing on your list imo. Said that, I really like your point to look at difficulty in perspective of some "objective beauty" - if such even exists. There are some pieces that are just impossible to play, but somehow they are not listened to a lot, so it seems that composing them was more about showing off difficulty than expressing beauty. Interesingly Ravel composed GdlN with the intention to write sth tougher to play than Islamey. It still turned out decent 😉 but I see it rather as an exception. Ravel is Ravel!
Re: Brahms, I, myself, would personally pick the two books of the Paganini Variations as the most difficult. A lot of that technical difficulty is sort of...hidden in the absolutely gorgeously smooth, melodious score. But, to me the Handel Variations passagework lies more naturally under the hand that that of the Paganini Variations. This being said, all of Brahms is difficult, but immensely satisfying musically.
@@adambowles3804 i considered it for sure. I've only played Handel but I looked seriously at doing Paganini instead when I learned Handel. In the end I went with Handel because I prefer it as a piece, but I view them as very close difficultly wise. Thanks for mentioning that, both pieces should be played more often imo!
I have a beautiful LP album with the Hammerklavier sonata, played by Christoph Eschenbach (who overcomes the technical difficulties in great style). Bought it when I was around fifteen. On the cover, he is sitting on stage by the grand piano, not in a classy dark suit, but wearing jeans and an everyday striped shirt - just another day on the job... :) I love the gesture of putting that photo on the album.
In high school I asked my orchestra teacher if we could play barbers adagio for strings. She said it was too hard and I didn’t understand, so she explained it was about the patience and expressiveness required to play so many consecutive long notes. I think it’s similar with Chopin’s nocturne, it’s not hard because of the notes but because of the potential for expression
Similarly, with Mozart. It's not fast notes or finger gymnastics that make his music difficult. But to really pull off a great Mozart recording, you need to play with such symmetrical, even phrasing and clarity. Most don't have the emotional control for it and play Mozart too romantically. So really, it's hard to get Mozart to sound right.
I have heard accomplished pianists play that Nocturne with little to no expression and it sounds terrible. Every time I play it I find such nuance...it is a beautiful piece when expressed correctly...certainly not difficult technically. Barber is beautiful as well
This video was very interesting, to say the least, but for some pieces I wouldn't agree at all, especially for Chopin, 4th Ballade isn't even the hardest Chopin's piece, his 3rd Sonata I would say it's his hardest work that in my opinion shouldn't even be in this list, also for Liszt's Sonata, it is very demanding, but there are multiple harder works by him, transcriptions of Beethoven's Symphonies, Hexameron, Lucrezia Borgia,...... Good video tho😁
@@SkibidiChoppyDaddy eh, if "original pieces" counts some freakishly hard but very harmonically useless pieces, like romancero espagnol, it's probably not
Regarding Brahms, the early sonatas may be as technically difficult as the Handel Variations, but the Handel Variations are dramatically more interesting musically, and in my opinion cannot be reasonably compared to the dreary sonatas as far as general quality goes. Regarding the F minor ballade, I used to be married to a music professor. One morning we woke up together and she told me she had had a dream about the F minor ballade. I proceeded to sing the first and second themes from the ballade from memory in my horrible voice to help her with her dream. She did not compliment me on my mastery of the piano literature, but instead mocked my singing voice, which admittedly is not good. And a few months later she dispensed with my services altogether. But these things happen. We will always have Paris...and Chopin.
Wow guy. Great vid! I've performed Bach-Busoni Prelude and Fugue in D Major. That's a real knuckle breaker. Also Busoni's Al' Italia. Knuckle breaker. A few others. But you did a great job here. Fun to watch. Good for you.
@@ericthompson2593 thanks a bunch! I've always heard the Bach-Busoni are monsters to learn and pull off, so congrats to you! Performing is so much more difficult than just learning. So nice to hear the encouragement to, I always hope to make the videos good, but also enjoyable to watch as well. Glad you enjoyed it!
Trying really hard to ignore the entire 20th century on this list 😅 I dont want to be everything here to be Xennakis or Ornstein, but if we limit us to tonality, Prokofievs Sonata and Busoni concerto should probably on the list. Also really doing Schumann dirty, the C Fantasy is probably harder than the 4th Ballad and Händel variations
It did skew a little older, haha. You know, I was trying to only pick pieces that I really liked and felt like a large percentage of the audience would like (so that did knock out some). I wanted to do Iberia, but sets of pieces are difficult to judge. Like, some mentioned the Liszt Transcendental Etudes, but it gets thorny when trying to determine what counts and how many pieces you allow in a set. Then there's obviously the issue of how many pieces to include on the list total. To include all of the suggestions so far would be about 50-100 pieces and I wanted around 10. So in that sense there's no winning 🤣 If I took off Goldberg could you imagine the comments. Good point about Schumann. That's one I honestly didn't consider but it was more of a memory slip than intentionally leaving it off.
@@markfowlermusic hey Mark. What would you know about youtubers? (sarcasm, obviously). Thanks for clicking on the video. You know, I find it kind of frustrating too. I work on putting out educational classical piano videos (that's my day job and degrees), but I make a video like this once in a while and more people see it in one day than will ever see most of my videos. It's really more for fun than educational. My core audience also loves and requests them because they're more just having a good time. It's cool in a way, but I wish it was more balanced.
I'm not sure if it's just an arrangement or exactly how it was composed but in my opinion Ravel's La valse is one of the biggest force, endurence and technique tours ever
Arrangement of a symphonic poem for orchestra. It was composed at the end of the First World War (premiered in 1919 I think) and Ravel is on record saying that it depicts the final bloom and death of "la Belle Époque", the optimistic, elegant pre-1914 age as it danced itself into the devastating war. He later toned down this reading of the work and preferred to say it had no specific "story" subject, but the interpretation is hard to escape. Probably he felt a bit embarrassed about this descriptive label...Yes, it's a tour de force both for the orchestra and in the piano version (isn't it two pianos?)
I don't disagree, but I didn't include any concertos. It's tough in general to judge them in difficulty compared to solo pieces so I figured it would be better to save concertos for another video.
What happened to Islamey, Op.18 by Balakirev, Mily. It's recognized as one of the hardest pieces for piano. Also, what about any piano concertos? Specifically, Prokofiev and Rachmaninov.
Hi Mr. Abshier, I have followed your ranking with great interest. I would not argue about any piece, neither to be included or excluded. I am absolutely not a fan of superlatives. I can follow your judgements, whether I have played a piece or not. Must of them I have not :) With Schubert, Chopin or Beethoven it is easy to agree. Some time long ago, my father said about pieces of those composers: if you want to play one piece well, you should play all pieces of that particular composers. I could agree with that, even if I would not use the term "all". With Beethoven I have started a real project when I went to retirement. I want to perform publicly all sonatas. (Except maybe the Hammerklavier). Currently there are only three to complete all otheres. ("Publicly" means in my case, having an audience between 200 and 30 persons, while I am currently fixed to my home and have to perform there. If you are interested you can see my invitations of the past 4 years. I have played all Schubert sonatas and also Wanderer, because he is one my real favorite composers.. (BTW, I am an amateur, professionally a technical engineer, considered as the best amateur pianist of Austria, which I deny. But it was said by a pianist and professor in Linz, Austria.) I will not attempt the "Gaspard". And I will also not attempt the Islamey (Balakirev). But I can claim that I have had a vast repertoire of compositions. Because of that, I personally could not do a ranking. During my life there were years when I played only Mozart, or only Schubert, or only Brahms. Currently I am practicing for my next "house music" recital Chopin opus 10/4, which renders a lot of pleasure for me :) Best regards from Vienna, Austria
@@lars1823 hey there! Things are going pretty good, busy as always of course. Yeah, I did some chord videos a year ago with the thought of being able to direct my private students to them (rather than explaining the basics in every lesson), but then I've sort of switch to a more intermediate/advanced focused videos. I've found a lot of RUclips is beginner beginner, or highly specific advanced niches, so I wanted to do something that would appeal to the majority of musicians. So yeah, it's been fun and going pretty good. Some income on the side and if things grow possibly focusing more on it in the future. Hope life is going well for you too these days, great to hear from you.
Dohnanyi Etude #6 is definitely a candidate. And most of Stravinsky’s pieces. Albeniz “Lavapies” from Iberia Book2 is so polyphonic that it’s not even funny.
Is that the one in F minor? Oh jesus yes, that is a freaking terror, as are some of the others of the set of six but that one is crazy difficult. Which Stravinsky pieces do you refer to? The Concerto for 2 pianos (unaccompanied) is super difficult. Lavapies, it goes without saying, is one of the hardest things ever written for the piano.
@@ryanabshier According to one pianist I met who actually recorded the whole Iberia and it's here on RUclips someplace, Albeniz almost threw Lavapies in the trash because it turned out so difficult. Thank God, he left it in. But the only person I've ever heard play it where it actually sounded Spanish is Larrocha. Even other Spanish pianists can not do it half as well as she did, even if they hit all the notes.
@@BenjiOrthopedic Yes F minor. Those Dohnanyi pieces are for prodigies, and for the very greatest of concert pianists. Did you ever hear Cziffra play it? It's here on RUclips. It's like Dohnanyi wrote it especially for him - or, with people like him in mind, of which there are very few. Stravinsky's piano music is in two categories - "hard" and "even harder." He never wrote easy pieces. Even his easiest pieces are still difficult. As you know, he was a virtuoso pianist and so was his son Soulima, who studied with the great Isidore Philipp (amongst others.) The Concerto for 2 solo pianos - yup, it is a knotty powerhouse, and that's why almost nobody performs it. Ahhh, Lavapies....totally Spanish, and yes, staggeringly difficult.
I know you're trying to pick one piece by different composers, but I have to say there are some odd choices. I have actually played two of the works menioned - Liszt Piano Sonata and Schubert's Wanderer's Fantasy. I played these a quarter of a century ago when I was still at school. As I ended up pursuing a science/engineering career, I stopped playing and only recently got back to music. I still go by my personal scale where if I can play a certain piece, then it is not that hard. There are plenty of Liszt and Rachmaninoff pieces that I know I don't have the technique to play (a lot of the Transcendental etudes, Reminiscences; Rachmaninoff's 3rd Piano Concerto, his Sonatas, etc.) By contrast, I have looked at the scores of Chopin's 4th Ballade and the Hammerklavier. While I haven't played these, it looks like these are at least feasible to pull off (I believe the 1st movement of Hammerklavier to be very playable, it's the Fugue that'd the real difficult challenge). For Chopin, I am pretty sure the Grande Polonaise is harder, just because the torrent of notes played at extreme speed seems to go on for much longer than the 4th Ballade, where it's the last few minutes (particularly the coda) that is challenging.
Brahms' Handel Variations and Fugue, are influenced from Beethoven's Eroica Variations and Fugue. And Eroica is much more harder and virtuosic than Handel.
Alkan, Alkan, Alkan but Bartok piano pieces require immense memorization of rhythms such as his etudes, nutso difficulty. I've been a follower of Alkan since I was 9 hearing Lewenthal in 1965 (as some mention below). However, I love the Liszt Sonata in b with dozens of performances starting with Horowitz 1932.
Hey Ryan, have you considered whether the piano scores you select from are solo piano pieces or for piano in orchestras? Just wondering if the tough ones are always "show pieces" for piano virtuosity exhibition, or like Chopin, maybe just due to composers inherent skills and talent on piano. On that tack, I wonder if anyone has transcribed the numerous improvisations of Keith Jarret and considered them on difficulty scale?
Jarrett himself finally produced a carefully prepared transcriptiion of his live Köln Concert solo album. That was after many years of demand, though he maintains that his improvisations are a different kind than normal, written music and so they shouldn't really be strictly copied. I think that's a view he partly inherited from Miles Davis, with whom he spent two formative years before starting out as a solo player and bandleader on his own.
is there a reason u havent included rach concerto 3? in my opinion its one of the hardest pieces written while still being one of the most beautiful and emotional ones
@@luismarle8282 yes, great question. I made the decision to just do solo piano music. Rach 3 would for sure be here, but it's difficult to judge concertos in general against solo piano music. You have the added challenges of staying together, rhythmically playing more precisely, and interpreting in tandem. So for example, would Beethoven 5 be harder to perform than Hammerklavier? The lack of good recordings seems to imply so. So because I didn't think it's a fair comparison I opted for only solo and figured I'd save concertos for another time. Thanks for checking out the video!
There's tons of unplayable music, esp. 20th century (ie. Ligeti, Sorabji) but if you want to do this sort of objectively you could limit it to major works from the Classical and Romantic periods which is going to be vastly more accessible to the general public. If you're okay with this limitation, say piano music up to about 1870, and do only single pieces, not for example "Liszt's Transcendental Etudes", then the ranking becomes less controversial. I would place the top 10 as follows, without attempting to precisely rank positionally: Alkan: Concerto for Solo Piano, Le Chemin de Fer, Le Preux Liszt: Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 arr. for piano solo, Reminiscences de Don Juan, Chasse-Neige, Spanish Fantasy Mereaux: Op. 63 No. 45 Tausig: The Ghost Ship Thalberg: Fantasy on Robert le Diable Beethoven's Hammerklavier would make the cut if played at indicated tempo but nobody can do it because it's simply beyond human capability. Scholarship is divided on what the actual intended tempo was.
I would push the year up to 1920 as Caleb Hu has done in his rankings. 1870 is too early when you miss composers like Rach, Prokofiev, Faure, Scriabin, Ravel, etc. It’s only after that we get composers like Sorabji, Finnissy, and Xenaxis? (Forget his name) where we get the dogshit that is modern piano composition.
🤣I really wanted this to be pieces at least a good chunk of the audience would enjoy. I guess the longest and most impossible "keyboard" work would be to John Cage. 600 years!
It is not the conglomerisation of notes,it could be difficult to play A simple piece such as Schumann .foreign lands-Kinderscene, to bring out the ultimment rendering Of course, massive density of notes is a big mountain to climb.
I would put another Brahms in the list... Sonata Nr 3 - F Minor And just for curiosity, I think that Nelson Freire has one of the most absolute versions for this Sonata ruclips.net/video/YTJgk5FpFDg/видео.html
lol...Interesting you put that abomination by Godovsky on there. Not only he touched an untouchable composer and untouchable set of etudes (no one ever wrote a better set of etudes!) he made a full out of himself by doing so. Unlike, for instance, Leszek Mozdzer who made an album of Chopin's impressions (word impression is a KEY here) that made history among all Chopin jazz inspired albums. Now, you don't mention Chopin's B minor sonata, which is commonly cited by some of the best pianists as quite a "work out" for the brain and I don't mean muscle here ( you have to capture the form well.) For most, except Blechacz (for whom it was a child's play), it seems daunting to play it. Also, where the hack is Gaspard de la nuit on your list? If you don't think it is universally difficult, then you have not played it🙂Final takeaway, what is difficult for one pianist is not always difficult for the next guy. By the same token, there is precision aspect involved in paying Mozart sonata with the right touch that may not be a case in playing some of the monumental concertos of the 20th century where you can "get away" with a lot more. Aman!
This ruclips.net/video/hMqYN538i8s/видео.htmlsi=E91MULpZvmhJ_Ilq is probably up there in terms of difficulty along with any other of Liszt's transcriptions most notably Beethoven Symphony no 5 transcription for piano.
I have to say after years and years ---- EVERYTHING is hard. Yes, technical stuff but an easy Mozart movement requires a huge technique physically and mentally
Absolutely. I am preparing books 1 and 2 of Iberia now and will say it is not easy. I have played every piece on this video list and this is harder than most.
I feel that the Sorabji Opus Clavicembalisticum and Sequentia Cyclica are masterpieces that belong on the list. I get that the dissonance can be off putting but under it is an amazing listen.
Lol, sorry for the trigger 🤣 I think it's a great piece, just mentioning I've heard the opposite opinion as well. But yeah, I only picked pieces I liked for the video.
Honestly I don’t understand why la campanella is on most of top because it is less difficult than most liszt pieces and except for the interprétation it’s not harder than hungarian rhapsodie 2
Retired pianist here. This is a fun topic since it opens up so much discussion. However, ranking difficulty is quite a thorny and nuanced subject. Difficulty can be looked at with at least three major lenses: there's musical/intellectual difficulty (how hard it is to understand and produce a convincing interpretation), physical performance difficulty (how hard it is physically on the fingers, hands, and wrists), and stamina difficulty for the mental or physical endurance needed, especially in longer works.
Older composers like Alkan and Liszt may be very physically demanding, but musically they are very approachable and generally easy enough for most people to grasp. Speaking of Liszt, his most overall difficult work (much more than his sonata) is arguably his transcription of Beethoven's Symphony 9. It's rarely discussed or performed. Very few ever recorded it since it's just that hard, especially for the tremendous endurance required. Cyprien Katsaris has no competition with his highly recommended excellent recording of it. Berlioz-Liszt Symphonie Fantastique also vies for the top spot since it is another endurance monster at nearly an hour.
Once we get to the late 1910s/early 1920s with composers like Ives and Roslavets, many listeners' ears start to check out or get left behind. Composers that followed like Sorabji 1930s, Messiaen 1940s, Stockhausen 1950s, Xenakis 1960s, Crumb and Finnissy 1970s, Ferneyhough and Hamelin 1980s, Barrett 1990s, Ligeti 2000s, all contributed insanely difficult works. Some freakishly so that border on absurdity.
Many of these modern works can easily be far too abstract and completely go over most casual listeners' heads. A good deal of it also is on a spectrum of being somewhat random sounding to nearly fully mathematically "random" (where if you hit a wrong note absolutely no one would ever know except the composer). If so few listeners know you are making errors, its rank of difficulty is surely blurred and adds complexity to the discussion.
Ryan, since you mostly discuss and appreciate tonal pieces that are more friendly on the ears, I'd say the hardest solo piece I've ever studied that still is very tonal, still very clearly structured, and still friendly enough to the ears (though still incredibly challenging) is Scriabin's magnificent masterpiece, the 8th sonata (1913). I would overall describe No. 8 as a sorcerer/art shaman putting you in a magical ultraviolet trance (starts off slow and hypnotic) and then begins to carry you off on an epic visionary journey into exotic otherworldly realms across the cosmos. For me, it's the very last gasp of Romanticism despite it clearly being early modern.
Nothing about this sonata is "easy" to play well. Even the seemingly easiest part- the slow intro, has up to 5 distinct counterpoint voices going on at once on three staves. It probably gets my personal vote for being (in at least some ways) the hardest single solo piano work up to 1915 (especially in a work that doesn't exceed 15 minutes) to pull off. Because there are so few instructions in the score, pianists generally take the "easiest" road they can, so many recordings are slow and wimpy...and they miss the point. No one has ever played the climax full prestissimo as he asks, which is likely not humanly possible. It is in the stratosphere in more ways than one. And unlike some of the more modern music that followed Scriabin, if you hit a single wrong note most unfamiliar listeners would still easily tell. No hiding!
Anyway, that's my vote. It's fun to geek-out on such lists but obviously, there is no ultimate correct answer as it depends on too many personal variables. Have a great week everyone.
A very informative comment!
I found Scriabin's 8th sonata difficult to learn/memorize, but not *that* hard overall. Not that I played it perfectly, but it's not bad either (I have a performance on my channel). On the other hand, I found the Hammerklavier 4th movement more difficult and I don't know whether I'd ever have the guts to perform that thing live...
@@pavlenikacevic4976 Thank you for the kind words and for sharing your experience. Wow, I warmly salute you for even attempting the mighty 8th! It doesn't get too much love so that's very cool of you and I put you in a special category of awesome. I look forward to listening to your recording.
Not to sound deeply presumptuous, but not finding the work overly difficult makes me right off the bat think your tempo is probably quite slow in the many difficult passages. No shame in that, I have over 30 recordings of this work and most of them are understandably slowish. But if you play this work with vigor, for example, in the climax at the blazing speeds he asks, it becomes near impossible. Of the 30 recordings, the vast majority play this final section moderato at best, a few allegro, and only one vivace! No one can play it continuously presto let alone the listed prestissimo (the fastest tempo marking there is). It's just too hard and may not be even possible.
Regarding the Hammerklavier 4th movement, I agree it is quite an intimidating work...which for Beethoven was kind of its intention. It's probably his most difficult sonata technically (with Opus 111 the hardest musically). Nevertheless, it is still much easier technically than the 8th Sonata and the notes mostly fall well in the hands and wrists. Its difficulty is primarily in the brilliant music itself, and it shares some of that labyrinthine and ecstatic quality of the eighth sonata. So many twists and turns, much of it very Baroque and fugue-like, and it takes many listenings to make sense.
Here is the big secret with this 4th movement: always focus on the main voice and don't get lost in the filigree "backup singers" which is maybe what is throwing you off. Be like a hawk and no matter how busy it gets, follow where and what the main voice is doing. This will give you your structure and is half the battle won right there. Wishing you the best and hope you have an inspired week brother. Big high-five from NY!
I was going to comment about Scriabin's 8th sonata, and then I started reading this, and lo and behold! Thanks for bringing attention to it as it's one of the greatest pieces of music I've ever heard.
@@aleksm.1863 My man!👊
To your list of three major criteria of difficulty, you might add a fourth --how hard is it to listen to? Very stiff competition there. Don't understand me wrong. I'm not suggesting not trying. Science tells us that it's actually better for your brain to listen to music you don't like : )
The most difficult pieces ever composed for the piano... Alkan, "hold my pint" 😂
Yeah, I want to hear some more Alkan love around here! The concerto for solo piano is one of my dream performances
Alkan is amazing, especially the concerto for solo piano, comme le vent, le chemin de fer and le festin d’Aseop
whats with all the cziffra arrangements
Skryabin's sonatas would score high too, I think.
sorabji:
hold my beer
What about Rachmaninoff?? 😮 He composed some or the most difficult repitoire by far, piano concertos and etudes. Also what about Chopin's 3rd sonata, that's very difficult
Yes, Rach 3 is renowned as one of the grandest and most technically difficult piano concertos ever. Max Reger's sets of variations on themes by Beethoven and Telemann also come to mind.
The pieces you listed are definitely very hard, but a long way from hardest.
Some pieces that come to mind are:
Alkan Concerto for Solo Piano
Berlioz/Liszt Symphonie Fantastique Transcription
Beethoven/Liszt Symphony Transcriptions (notably 9)
Busoni Piano Concerto
Godowsky Java Suite
Chopin/Godowsky Studies
Ives Concord Sonata
Szymanowski 3rd Sonata
Feinberg 3rd Sonata
Scriabin 8th Sonata
Busoni Contrappuntistica
Reger/Bach Variations and Fugue
The list goes on and on
Only put the more "accessible" pieces and not any of the "new complexity" stuff for obvious reasons.
Even if we're just talking about the standard repertoire there are so many pieces in the standard repertoire that deserve to be here over Liszt B minor Sonata, Chopin ballade 4, and Schubert Wanderer Fantasy. Not sure what Scriabin 8 is doing on that list though. That’s really not that difficult, or at least without a doubt easier than hammerklavier and gaspard and everything else on your list.
Dude remove Godowsky from Chopin Etudes.
@@Magzhan-o3sGodowsky wrote studies on the chopin etudes that are much harder than the original.
-Alkan symphony for solo piano
-Alkan concerto for solo piano
-Alkan op 17
-Alkan op 16
-Alkan op 33
-Alkan op 34
-Alkan op 61
-Alkan op 76
-Liszt S136
-Liszt S137
-Liszt S139
-Liszt S140
-Liszt S178
-Liszt S253
-Liszt S254
-All liszt reminiscences (especilly Lucrezia borgia)
-All liszt transcriptions (beet 9)
-Liszt s420
-Liszt s693
-Liszt s694
-Liszt s695c
-Liszt s697
-Liszt s700a/i
-Liszt s700a/ii
-Tausig/chopin piano concerto 1
-Tausig the ghost ship
-Godowsky/chopin etudes
-Godowsky passacaglia
-Godowsky Java suite
-Stravinsky/Agosti Firebird
-Liszt/Stradal all symphony poems (especially mazeppa)
-All mereaux op 63 etudes
-Strakosch yankee doodle variations
-Ravel la valse
-Hamelin etudes
-Liszt/cziffra transcriptions
-Liszt/horowitz transcriptions
-Rzewski ballades
-Rzewski the people united will never be defeated
-Medtner sonatas
-Medtner concertos
-Scriabin sonatas
-Scriabin etudes
-Brahms paganini variations
-Some czerny etudes in tempo
-Rach concetros
-Rach sonatas
-Rach etudes
-Sorabji symphonyc etudes
-Sorabji opusc archimagicum adn clavicembalisticum
-too lazy to continue
Busoni, Reger, Szymanowski...
Well that's way too general. "Rach etudes" are definitely not amongst the most difficult pieces, especially not op. 33. I would say the same for czerny etudes and scriabin etudes.
Chopin variation with leaps in Variations on Là ci darem la mano Op 2 wins over all these Pieces, even against Godowsky' s Etudes, or Sorabji.
Try to play It, without pedal as It Is written.
@@alessandropelizzoli6613 I agree, it's beautiful and extremely difficult, just unfortunately so unknown
lolol then you get composers Kazutomo Yamatomo
Really great list. Funny to me how Brahms dissed Liszt for being too showy and only technical yet he wrote 2 Paganini variations and a crazy book of exercises, and his concerto 2 is fiendishly difficult 😂
Thank you for reminding us of the fabulous Brahms Handel Variations! It's been since the 80's that I thought of that magnificent work!
It’s so good. Check out Gary Graffman’s album with the Paganini and Handel variations. Really good playing in that album.
@@eddydelrio1303 Such a brilliant piece of music, possibly one of the most underplayed great works. I had the privilege to study it with Mark Clinton who had studied with the great Leon Fleisher. I remember Mark telling me "this is the kind of piece you can return to every 10 years and still improve it." Coming from someone who was better at age 15 than most people will ever be, this means a lot.
I think Liszt’s B minor piano sonata, when played with all the feeling and passion possible, can be breathtakingly beautiful music. And the ending, which Liszt decided to end on the minor, takes music to a new height of romantic expression. It reaches outward and asunder to another world. But, as you say, there are other perhaps more difficult pieces.
Liszt's B minor sonata is notable more for its compositional brilliance than its difficulty to perform. It is literally lauded by consensus as the composer's magnum opus. Liszt's most difficult work to perform is most likely his Spanish Fantasy, S. 253.
Yeah I'm not sure that was about
He was probably thinking of the Brahms falling asleep story
It isn't a debate at all if it's a legendary piece.
Its probably his Symphony 9th transcription
Perhaps his album de voyageur, ranz de chèvres is one of his hardest pieces
I don't disagree, I love every piece on the list (that's how I narrowed down the pieces), but there are many who feel Liszt was one of the worst composers and was only flash and flair. These people think his inability to craft a piece makes his long form less good. Just giving their perspective, not that I agree with it. You can just look at my personal tierlist video and see a bunch of Liszt hate. Many were confused that I put him so high, they wanted him near the bottom.
About the Brahms story, I just discovered that recently. My views on the Liszt opinions were more formed in college years where I heard a bunch of love and a bunch of hate. Many pros think he is the ultimate pianist, and many think he's weak and only exels in short flashy pieces. Not my opinion, but it is an opinion.
No, his hardest is the 9th Symphony transcription.
Nice bro :) I'm personally pretty scared of Liszt's Reminiscences de Don Juan and Norma. There is so much good music written, life is way too short.
Actually, I was also thinking of the Don Juan as several steps more technically difficult that the Sonata in b minor, not that I don't think the Sonata is one of Liszt's greatest works.
Norma is actually ok. Don Juan on the other hand… 🥴🤕😵💫🤯
I agree. There are at least 20 Liszt pieces that deserve to be here over Sonata in B minor, including Don Juan. Although maybe not Norma.
Lucrezia Borgia is actually much harder
The Liszt B minor sonata is one of the greatest sonatas ever written. It kind of baffles me that this piece is controversial.
I would argue his transcription on beethoven 9 is more difficult, but at this point it doesn't even matter because all that shit is pretty much impossible to play lmao
@@MOtt-hp3yk yep, definitely!
That’s true! I’ve never met a pianist who does not love the b minor sonata. I recently had the privilege to hear Illia Ovcharenko perform it in recital - truly divine!
There are just some people who hate Liszt without giving it a second thought.
my thought exactly that piece is amazing i love it
The most difficult piece that is TONAL and in the Romantic idiom is probably Godowsky's Passacaglia on a theme by Schubert. Godowsky's writing is very dense, contrapuntal, super virtuosic - but it's also very accessible and pleasant on a more superficial level too.
Alkan is of course legendary too - and his music is like Liszt in that it requires a lot of "athletic virtuosity" - but Godowsky is the absolute peak of Romantic Piano - his music is really virtuosic in "athletic" ways but ALSO is so complex - really rich like a multi-layered cake.
So in terms of music that I think has WIDE appeal and Romantic-style musical material - I'd say Godowsky is the top composer in terms of difficulty - and the Passacaglia is his most challenging work (asides from the complete studies on Chopin etudes!).
I recommend recordings by Marc-Andre Hamelin - and also recommend the complete solo piano works by Godowsky - recorded by Konstantin Scherbakov. One of the biggest achievements in recorded music really, up there with Leslie Howard doing all of Liszt!
Busoni's piano concerto may be harder than anything Alkan ever wrote, and is definitely up there with Godowsky as both extremely technically (and physically) demanding but also quite accessible to the listener.
Love, love, LOVE Godowsky
This guy gets it, the passacaglia is really wild
Isn't Java Suite Godowsky's most difficult work?
@@SanestBlueArchiveFan ehh
Sorabji - Gulistan
It is a 30 minute or so nocturne that is pretty despite the sheer amount of notes, sight reading challenge, and technical demand on part of the pianist to perform.
I was thinking of his massive "Opus Clavicembalisticum" - a sprawling work lasting for hours and with some very difficult passages.
@louise_rose the multiple hour long works are indeed super difficult but not really practical to learn. I imagine most of those will never be realized by an actual pianist. Unless they are a bit crazy and have some freakish stamina lol
@@louise_rose check description, there's a reason why he didn't pick opus clavicembalisticum or opus archimagicum, etc
Additional interesting and difficult piano music worth checking out would be the etude The Devil's Staircase by György Ligeti, Concord Sonata by Charles Ives, and Symphonie for solo piano by Charles-Valentin Alkan.
I actually don't think The Devil's Staircase is the hardest Etude of that cycle. Automne a Varsovie seems to be the hardest both on a technical and intellectual level. Vertige and Coloana infinita seem like the most challenging from a purely technical perspective.
@@alans98989 I agree. I am limiting my choices to pieces I especially like that are also notably difficult.
Pieces that come to mind for me when I hear "most difficult":
Bartok - Concerto no. 2
Messiaen - Vingt Regards
Ligeti - Etudes
Ives - Sonata No. 2
Alkan - Trois Grandes Etudes
Busoni - Fantasia Contrappuntistica
Liszt - Paganini Etudes
And really any new complexity piece
Beethoven: Hammerklavier, Diabelli Variations and Archduke Trio
Schubert: Wanderer
Chopin: 3rd Sonata
Schumann: Toccata
Liszt: Transcendental Etudes (as a set, one after the other), Don Juan, Guillaume Tell paraphrase
Tchaikovsky: Piano trio
Brahms: Paganini Variations (much much harder than the Händel variations) and second concerto
Stravinsky: Petrushka
Bartok: etudes, concertos, sonata, pretty much everything
Prokofiev: second concerto, sonata n. 8
Ravel: Gaspard, Miroirs, Trio
Rachmaninov: 3rd concerto
Alkan: …(hold my beer)…
Busoni: concerto
Sorabij: Opus Clavicembalisticum
Godowsky: the three Symphonic metamorphosis on Strauß waltzes, Chopin Etudes
Shostakovich: preludes and fugues
Messiaen: vingt regards
Albeniz: Iberia
And so much more (Stockhausen etc. etc.)
Having read may many ost of these comments, I must say that I do agree with a good deal of the ones already mentioned that fall into the HARD category. The one major omission that really surprises me is the one movement work Rudepoema by Villa-Lobos which is reputed by many to qualify for most difficult of piano works that require a precise rhythmic sense and terrifying rapid leaps and the ability to juggle massive sonorities
The second movement of Alkan's sonata is just mindblowingly difficult. It even has an 8(!) voice fugue in it.
Does it sound good? Probably not.
@@Calisthincenjoyer I don't like the fugue that much, but the rest of it is incredible! Even Hamelin made a recording of it, you should really go listen to it
@@Calisthincenjoyer I don’t know this sonata specifically, but he was a tonal composer, so it will likely sound at least good
Sounds great, you should give it a listen
@@Calisthincenjoyeralkan sounds great!
Not a top tier composer like Beethoven, but good fun to listen to and a complete nightmare to play.
Surprised Islamey didn't make the cut, but agree with your thoughts on the ones presented.
@@markdecker2112 it was the first piece off. I made a bigger list and cut it down to this. Obviously some tough choices and that was the last one before I stopped cutting.
I say that Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto 3 is one of the most difficult pieces of the piano repertoire
Im glad I dont have to play those pieces! Well presented. Love to hear more of your work.
Of the ‘normal’ cannon (so I’m excluding Sorabji and other similar monster works/composers), two I would put at or near the top are Ives’ Concord Sonata and Messiaen’s Vingt Regardes. Both fantastic works, but incredibly complex and long. Honorable mention to Busoni’s Fantasia Contrappuntistica
I would say that the fourth scherzo probably beats out the fourth Ballade by Chopin. The Ballade's coda is definitely difficult, but overall i think the scherzo is more technically challenging
All four of Chopin's scherzi are technically difficult, though the second isn't as much as the other three
This guy has the most pianistic takes and picks. Truly real opinions of real pianists, and not a Moonlight Sonata glazer. Give this man a Steinway! You have my respect, and you also earned a new subscriber. Continue like this. I love your channel.
@@chironchiron5053 thanks a bunch for the kind words. I really want this to be a fun channel with real perspectives/thoughts from a real classical musician, not just a "react to videos and give generic AI takes" channel And also I'll take the Steinway if anyone is offering 🤣
@@chironchiron5053 oh also, nice thumbnail. Brings back memories.
@@ryanabshier thanks about the thumbnail. Yeah, you actually have opinions that I respect, and not just listening to Google and ‘classical channels’’s trash takes. Also if I was a millionaire I’d give a Steinway but I don’t have one either LOL
Thumbs up because they don't only have to be difficult but have to be "pleasant" to listen to also. There's a lot of stuff out there that is almost unplayable that also is just more of an exercise in difficulty than musically significant.
Which Schumann piece would you select for the list? Symphonic etudes, kreisleriana, or carnival?
I have another candidate for you: Enrique Granados, Goyescas. A true masterpiece, and very, very difficult.
I have the E flat nocturne published in a book called easy nocturnes. No idea how that could get on a hardest pieces list.
I know. The list I'm referring to was bad in general. Things like Tempest sonata, haha. No disrespect, it's a great challenge to play well, but easily 5-10 Beethoven sonatas are harder, maybe more. The Chopin Eb nocturne was the most wild though.
It’s probably the easiest nocturne lol ?
The last movement of Rach2 and the entire Rach3 are fiendishly difficult to play, yet they are one of the most breathtakingly beautiful gems of the romantic repertoire. They should not be missing on your list imo. Said that, I really like your point to look at difficulty in perspective of some "objective beauty" - if such even exists. There are some pieces that are just impossible to play, but somehow they are not listened to a lot, so it seems that composing them was more about showing off difficulty than expressing beauty. Interesingly Ravel composed GdlN with the intention to write sth tougher to play than Islamey. It still turned out decent 😉 but I see it rather as an exception. Ravel is Ravel!
Re: Brahms, I, myself, would personally pick the two books of the Paganini Variations as the most difficult. A lot of that technical difficulty is sort of...hidden in the absolutely gorgeously smooth, melodious score. But, to me the Handel Variations passagework lies more naturally under the hand that that of the Paganini Variations. This being said, all of Brahms is difficult, but immensely satisfying musically.
@@adambowles3804 i considered it for sure. I've only played Handel but I looked seriously at doing Paganini instead when I learned Handel. In the end I went with Handel because I prefer it as a piece, but I view them as very close difficultly wise. Thanks for mentioning that, both pieces should be played more often imo!
Liszt's transcription of beethoven's 9th symphony is insanely difficult
Michael Finnissy, George Crumb, Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji
Bartok's Three Études, Op.18...😊
I have a beautiful LP album with the Hammerklavier sonata, played by Christoph Eschenbach (who overcomes the technical difficulties in great style). Bought it when I was around fifteen. On the cover, he is sitting on stage by the grand piano, not in a classy dark suit, but wearing jeans and an everyday striped shirt - just another day on the job... :) I love the gesture of putting that photo on the album.
In high school I asked my orchestra teacher if we could play barbers adagio for strings. She said it was too hard and I didn’t understand, so she explained it was about the patience and expressiveness required to play so many consecutive long notes.
I think it’s similar with Chopin’s nocturne, it’s not hard because of the notes but because of the potential for expression
Similarly, with Mozart. It's not fast notes or finger gymnastics that make his music difficult. But to really pull off a great Mozart recording, you need to play with such symmetrical, even phrasing and clarity. Most don't have the emotional control for it and play Mozart too romantically. So really, it's hard to get Mozart to sound right.
I have heard accomplished pianists play that Nocturne with little to no expression and it sounds terrible. Every time I play it I find such nuance...it is a beautiful piece when expressed correctly...certainly not difficult technically.
Barber is beautiful as well
Whats your opinion on ballade no 1? Not in difficulty, just whether its good or not.
This video was very interesting, to say the least, but for some pieces I wouldn't agree at all, especially for Chopin, 4th Ballade isn't even the hardest Chopin's piece, his 3rd Sonata I would say it's his hardest work that in my opinion shouldn't even be in this list, also for Liszt's Sonata, it is very demanding, but there are multiple harder works by him, transcriptions of Beethoven's Symphonies, Hexameron, Lucrezia Borgia,...... Good video tho😁
Sir what is that username?
@@Big_floppa8492 do not ask....
hexameron harder than b minor sonata??
@@Andrew-sw1cv Aboslutely, probably the hardest out of his original piano works (excluding his symphony transcriptions)
@@SkibidiChoppyDaddy eh, if "original pieces" counts some freakishly hard but very harmonically useless pieces, like romancero espagnol, it's probably not
Not even close. There is more than 50 harder pieces by Sorabji, Ives, Alkan, Godowsky, Busoni....
Agree. This list is one of the worst I’ve seen.
The Wanderer Fantasy is a great work. The second movement is no piece of cake either.
Regarding Brahms, the early sonatas may be as technically difficult as the Handel Variations, but the Handel Variations are dramatically more interesting musically, and in my opinion cannot be reasonably compared to the dreary sonatas as far as general quality goes. Regarding the F minor ballade, I used to be married to a music professor. One morning we woke up together and she told me she had had a dream about the F minor ballade. I proceeded to sing the first and second themes from the ballade from memory in my horrible voice to help her with her dream. She did not compliment me on my mastery of the piano literature, but instead mocked my singing voice, which admittedly is not good. And a few months later she dispensed with my services altogether. But these things happen. We will always have Paris...and Chopin.
Wow guy. Great vid! I've performed Bach-Busoni Prelude and Fugue in D Major. That's a real knuckle breaker. Also Busoni's Al' Italia. Knuckle breaker. A few others. But you did a great job here. Fun to watch. Good for you.
@@ericthompson2593 thanks a bunch! I've always heard the Bach-Busoni are monsters to learn and pull off, so congrats to you! Performing is so much more difficult than just learning. So nice to hear the encouragement to, I always hope to make the videos good, but also enjoyable to watch as well. Glad you enjoyed it!
Trying really hard to ignore the entire 20th century on this list 😅
I dont want to be everything here to be Xennakis or Ornstein, but if we limit us to tonality, Prokofievs Sonata and Busoni concerto should probably on the list.
Also really doing Schumann dirty, the C Fantasy is probably harder than the 4th Ballad and Händel variations
It did skew a little older, haha. You know, I was trying to only pick pieces that I really liked and felt like a large percentage of the audience would like (so that did knock out some). I wanted to do Iberia, but sets of pieces are difficult to judge. Like, some mentioned the Liszt Transcendental Etudes, but it gets thorny when trying to determine what counts and how many pieces you allow in a set.
Then there's obviously the issue of how many pieces to include on the list total. To include all of the suggestions so far would be about 50-100 pieces and I wanted around 10. So in that sense there's no winning 🤣 If I took off Goldberg could you imagine the comments.
Good point about Schumann. That's one I honestly didn't consider but it was more of a memory slip than intentionally leaving it off.
I agree with moonlight sonata 3rd movement. It's not that hard to play but it sound so cool that non-pianist will find it t very difficult to play.
Another RUclipsr doing the algorithm favourite hardest piano pieces topic…
@@markfowlermusic hey Mark. What would you know about youtubers? (sarcasm, obviously). Thanks for clicking on the video.
You know, I find it kind of frustrating too. I work on putting out educational classical piano videos (that's my day job and degrees), but I make a video like this once in a while and more people see it in one day than will ever see most of my videos. It's really more for fun than educational. My core audience also loves and requests them because they're more just having a good time.
It's cool in a way, but I wish it was more balanced.
Well respect to you anyway and thanks for your pleasant reply regardless, wish you all the best.
@@markfowlermusic thanks. Hope thinks are going well for you!
Schumann Toccata, Feux Follets, Brahms Paganini Variations…The 3rd Sonata is harder than the 4th Ballade.
I'm not sure if it's just an arrangement or exactly how it was composed but in my opinion Ravel's La valse is one of the biggest force, endurence and technique tours ever
Arrangement of a symphonic poem for orchestra. It was composed at the end of the First World War (premiered in 1919 I think) and Ravel is on record saying that it depicts the final bloom and death of "la Belle Époque", the optimistic, elegant pre-1914 age as it danced itself into the devastating war. He later toned down this reading of the work and preferred to say it had no specific "story" subject, but the interpretation is hard to escape. Probably he felt a bit embarrassed about this descriptive label...Yes, it's a tour de force both for the orchestra and in the piano version (isn't it two pianos?)
Rach 3 not being here is a crime imo
I don't disagree, but I didn't include any concertos. It's tough in general to judge them in difficulty compared to solo pieces so I figured it would be better to save concertos for another video.
@@ryanabshier oh I see
What happened to Islamey, Op.18 by Balakirev, Mily. It's recognized as one of the hardest pieces for piano. Also, what about any piano concertos? Specifically, Prokofiev and Rachmaninov.
Hi Mr. Abshier, I have followed your ranking with great interest. I would not argue about any piece, neither to be included or excluded.
I am absolutely not a fan of superlatives. I can follow your judgements, whether I have played a piece or not. Must of them I have not :) With Schubert, Chopin or Beethoven it is easy to agree. Some time long ago, my father said about pieces of those composers: if you want to play one piece well, you should play all pieces of that particular composers. I could agree with that, even if I would not use the term "all". With Beethoven I have started a real project when I went to retirement. I want to perform publicly all sonatas. (Except maybe the Hammerklavier). Currently there are only three to complete all otheres. ("Publicly" means in my case, having an audience between 200 and 30 persons, while I am currently fixed to my home and have to perform there. If you are interested you can see my invitations of the past 4 years.
I have played all Schubert sonatas and also Wanderer, because he is one my real favorite composers.. (BTW, I am an amateur, professionally a technical engineer, considered as the best amateur pianist of Austria, which I deny. But it was said by a pianist and professor in Linz, Austria.)
I will not attempt the "Gaspard". And I will also not attempt the Islamey (Balakirev). But I can claim that I have had a vast repertoire of compositions. Because of that, I personally could not do a ranking. During my life there were years when I played only Mozart, or only Schubert, or only Brahms. Currently I am practicing for my next "house music" recital Chopin opus 10/4, which renders a lot of pleasure for me :)
Best regards from Vienna, Austria
Ryan! I didn’t know you did RUclips videos on piano music! This is great! I hope you are well!
@@lars1823 hey there! Things are going pretty good, busy as always of course.
Yeah, I did some chord videos a year ago with the thought of being able to direct my private students to them (rather than explaining the basics in every lesson), but then I've sort of switch to a more intermediate/advanced focused videos. I've found a lot of RUclips is beginner beginner, or highly specific advanced niches, so I wanted to do something that would appeal to the majority of musicians. So yeah, it's been fun and going pretty good. Some income on the side and if things grow possibly focusing more on it in the future.
Hope life is going well for you too these days, great to hear from you.
One of my favorite pieces by lizst is benediction de dieu… feels ethereal to play
Dohnanyi Etude #6 is definitely a candidate. And most of Stravinsky’s pieces. Albeniz “Lavapies” from Iberia Book2 is so polyphonic that it’s not even funny.
Iberia almost made the list. As a set it's a no brainer, but I went back and forth on selecting individual pieces or not.
Is that the one in F minor? Oh jesus yes, that is a freaking terror, as are some of the others of the set of six but that one is crazy difficult. Which Stravinsky pieces do you refer to? The Concerto for 2 pianos (unaccompanied) is super difficult. Lavapies, it goes without saying, is one of the hardest things ever written for the piano.
@@ryanabshier According to one pianist I met who actually recorded the whole Iberia and it's here on RUclips someplace, Albeniz almost threw Lavapies in the trash because it turned out so difficult. Thank God, he left it in. But the only person I've ever heard play it where it actually sounded Spanish is Larrocha. Even other Spanish pianists can not do it half as well as she did, even if they hit all the notes.
@@BenjiOrthopedic Yes F minor. Those Dohnanyi pieces are for prodigies, and for the very greatest of concert pianists. Did you ever hear Cziffra play it? It's here on RUclips. It's like Dohnanyi wrote it especially for him - or, with people like him in mind, of which there are very few. Stravinsky's piano music is in two categories - "hard" and "even harder." He never wrote easy pieces. Even his easiest pieces are still difficult. As you know, he was a virtuoso pianist and so was his son Soulima, who studied with the great Isidore Philipp (amongst others.) The Concerto for 2 solo pianos - yup, it is a knotty powerhouse, and that's why almost nobody performs it. Ahhh, Lavapies....totally Spanish, and yes, staggeringly difficult.
and PS, The Liszt Sonata is truly a masterpiece, I came to it late and now even in sleep I am hearing it
I know you're trying to pick one piece by different composers, but I have to say there are some odd choices. I have actually played two of the works menioned - Liszt Piano Sonata and Schubert's Wanderer's Fantasy. I played these a quarter of a century ago when I was still at school. As I ended up pursuing a science/engineering career, I stopped playing and only recently got back to music. I still go by my personal scale where if I can play a certain piece, then it is not that hard. There are plenty of Liszt and Rachmaninoff pieces that I know I don't have the technique to play (a lot of the Transcendental etudes, Reminiscences; Rachmaninoff's 3rd Piano Concerto, his Sonatas, etc.) By contrast, I have looked at the scores of Chopin's 4th Ballade and the Hammerklavier. While I haven't played these, it looks like these are at least feasible to pull off (I believe the 1st movement of Hammerklavier to be very playable, it's the Fugue that'd the real difficult challenge). For Chopin, I am pretty sure the Grande Polonaise is harder, just because the torrent of notes played at extreme speed seems to go on for much longer than the 4th Ballade, where it's the last few minutes (particularly the coda) that is challenging.
Rachmaninoff’s second sonata scares me, along with with pieces like Islamey, Gaspard de la Nuit, Rach 3, Reminiscences de Don Juan, etc.
The Liszt Auber Tarantella is a lot harder (and maybe even better?) than the one from Annees.
Brahms' Handel Variations and Fugue, are influenced from Beethoven's Eroica Variations and Fugue. And Eroica is much more harder and virtuosic than Handel.
Wow! I started learn piano music from the end of the third part of Moolight sonata!
Alkan, Alkan, Alkan but Bartok piano pieces require immense memorization of rhythms such as his etudes, nutso difficulty. I've been a follower of Alkan since I was 9 hearing Lewenthal in 1965 (as some mention below). However, I love the Liszt Sonata in b with dozens of performances starting with Horowitz 1932.
If it’s technical difficulty, then there are a thousand modern dissonant and serial piano works that easily outpace those of a tonal variety.
You should have picked Spanish Fantasy no.253 for Liszt. It’s definitely the hardest Liszt piece
Beethoven-Liszt symphony number 9 would like a word with you ;)
the piece is pretty harmonically boring and his symphony 9 is the hardest
What’s your opinion on pieces like Liszt S420, S253, S463d
Cool. Well thought and defended. I would consider Liszt/Wagner Tannhauser Overture over Sonata. But both are ridiculous.
You left out the Albeniz Iberia and Granados Goyescas…guaranteed to turn any pianist’s fingers into spaghetti…
Gaspard de la Nuit, Prokofiev Concerto no. 2 and 3, Liszt Etudes
For me the 3 most difficult pieces ever heard are : Listz's Etude No5 feux Follets, Ravel's Gaspard de La Nuit and Liszt's Mephisto Walz no1.
Great picks. Amazing how many good options there are for Liszt. Thanks for checking out the video!
Thanks Ryan, it's interesting to know.
My brother in Christ, unless this was Solo piano exclusively, you cannot exclude Rach 3
Maybe skriabin and his harmony should be here
Hey Ryan, have you considered whether the piano scores you select from are solo piano pieces or for piano in orchestras? Just wondering if the tough ones are always "show pieces" for piano virtuosity exhibition, or like Chopin, maybe just due to composers inherent skills and talent on piano.
On that tack, I wonder if anyone has transcribed the numerous improvisations of Keith Jarret and considered them on difficulty scale?
Jarrett himself finally produced a carefully prepared transcriptiion of his live Köln Concert solo album. That was after many years of demand, though he maintains that his improvisations are a different kind than normal, written music and so they shouldn't really be strictly copied. I think that's a view he partly inherited from Miles Davis, with whom he spent two formative years before starting out as a solo player and bandleader on his own.
is there a reason u havent included rach concerto 3? in my opinion its one of the hardest pieces written while still being one of the most beautiful and emotional ones
@@luismarle8282 yes, great question. I made the decision to just do solo piano music. Rach 3 would for sure be here, but it's difficult to judge concertos in general against solo piano music. You have the added challenges of staying together, rhythmically playing more precisely, and interpreting in tandem. So for example, would Beethoven 5 be harder to perform than Hammerklavier? The lack of good recordings seems to imply so.
So because I didn't think it's a fair comparison I opted for only solo and figured I'd save concertos for another time. Thanks for checking out the video!
@@ryanabshier oh okay makes sense!
No rach 3?😨
The title should be "The most difficult CLASSICAL piano pieces ever written".
Also Beethoven's diabelli variations is also more challenging than La Campanella, Hungarian Rhapsodies,Mazeppa,And Gaspard De La Nuit
There's tons of unplayable music, esp. 20th century (ie. Ligeti, Sorabji) but if you want to do this sort of objectively you could limit it to major works from the Classical and Romantic periods which is going to be vastly more accessible to the general public. If you're okay with this limitation, say piano music up to about 1870, and do only single pieces, not for example "Liszt's Transcendental Etudes", then the ranking becomes less controversial. I would place the top 10 as follows, without attempting to precisely rank positionally:
Alkan: Concerto for Solo Piano, Le Chemin de Fer, Le Preux
Liszt: Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 arr. for piano solo, Reminiscences de Don Juan, Chasse-Neige, Spanish Fantasy
Mereaux: Op. 63 No. 45
Tausig: The Ghost Ship
Thalberg: Fantasy on Robert le Diable
Beethoven's Hammerklavier would make the cut if played at indicated tempo but nobody can do it because it's simply beyond human capability. Scholarship is divided on what the actual intended tempo was.
Le chemin de fer and chasse neige are pretty tame compared to the other pieces you mentioned
you obviously forget musicality the lyrical onslaught from ballade no4 is too hard
@@SanestBlueArchiveFan That's a fair call. I agree.
I would push the year up to 1920 as Caleb Hu has done in his rankings. 1870 is too early when you miss composers like Rach, Prokofiev, Faure, Scriabin, Ravel, etc. It’s only after that we get composers like Sorabji, Finnissy, and Xenaxis? (Forget his name) where we get the dogshit that is modern piano composition.
Hey, Ryan, are you familiar with Carl Nielsen's op.53 Klavermusic?
Technically? There are many. Musically? Hammerklavier.
You should check out Medellin by Sofiane pamart, he’s a crazy pianist
the description is blatant sorabji slander lmfaooooo 💀
🤣I really wanted this to be pieces at least a good chunk of the audience would enjoy. I guess the longest and most impossible "keyboard" work would be to John Cage. 600 years!
Atonality is not music by any objective measure since it contradicts the meaning of the word music itself. Deal with it.
Atonal music can be beautiful
@@ultimateconstructions atonality is music deal with it
@@ultimateconstructions are you a 5 year old, spend 5 minutes trying to define music and it's not so simple.
Rach piano concerto 3 and chopin ballades should be here
It is not the conglomerisation of notes,it could be difficult to play A simple piece such as Schumann .foreign lands-Kinderscene, to bring out the ultimment rendering Of course, massive density of notes is a big mountain to climb.
Probably Prokofjev second piano concerto
I would put another Brahms in the list... Sonata Nr 3 - F Minor
And just for curiosity, I think that Nelson Freire has one of the most absolute versions for this Sonata
ruclips.net/video/YTJgk5FpFDg/видео.html
Good point. I only did one piece per composer, but it was tough to decide between the big variations and the sonata. Thanks for the link.
Ligeti is my personal favorite but Sorabji is borderline psychotic.
nobody talks about alkan
Sorabji, Alkan, Méreaux, Ives, Feinberg, Kapustin has some pretty crazy too...name more, guys
Dutilleux, Barret, Xenakis, Medtner, Lyatoshynsky, Skalkottas, Roslavets, Ginastera, Messiaen, Ferneyhough, Finnissy, Stockhausen, Furrer, etc.
lol...Interesting you put that abomination by Godovsky on there. Not only he touched an untouchable composer and untouchable set of etudes (no one ever wrote a better set of etudes!) he made a full out of himself by doing so. Unlike, for instance, Leszek Mozdzer who made an album of Chopin's impressions (word impression is a KEY here) that made history among all Chopin jazz inspired albums. Now, you don't mention Chopin's B minor sonata, which is commonly cited by some of the best pianists as quite a "work out" for the brain and I don't mean muscle here ( you have to capture the form well.) For most, except Blechacz (for whom it was a child's play), it seems daunting to play it. Also, where the hack is Gaspard de la nuit on your list? If you don't think it is universally difficult, then you have not played it🙂Final takeaway, what is difficult for one pianist is not always difficult for the next guy. By the same token, there is precision aspect involved in paying Mozart sonata with the right touch that may not be a case in playing some of the monumental concertos of the 20th century where you can "get away" with a lot more. Aman!
@@jakubrojek3652 bro thats a long text
Write more.
Balakirev
But they wrote sound, not music. :p
This ruclips.net/video/hMqYN538i8s/видео.htmlsi=E91MULpZvmhJ_Ilq is probably up there in terms of difficulty along with any other of Liszt's transcriptions most notably Beethoven Symphony no 5 transcription for piano.
As fiendish as all of the symphonies are, symphony number 9 is in a league of its own imo.
La Campanilla is difficult for a pianist with small hands like me bit it is not impossible with the right technique and practice strategies.
Finissys piano concertos are probably the hardest pieces
What? No Alkan? No Quasi-Faust? No Festin d'Esop?
Prok 1, 2 or 3? Even if you can handle the technique, almost nobody gets the expressions right.
Your missing some of the Russian composers: I'm sure Rachmoninoff or even Tchaikovsky's concerto would merit a mention.
I have to say after years and years ---- EVERYTHING is hard. Yes, technical stuff but an easy Mozart movement requires a huge technique physically and mentally
Rach 3 has me trembling
Godowsky Études ☠️
I was wondering too. Maybe some of him was on hos pre-RUclips-video list but did not make the cut.
Where are the Granados Goyescas and Isaac Albéniz Iberia? 😢
Absolutely. I am preparing books 1 and 2 of Iberia now and will say it is not easy. I have played every piece on this video list and this is harder than most.
Would you put bach chaconne busoni arr or listz bach arr on the most difficulties pieces ?
I feel that the Sorabji Opus Clavicembalisticum and Sequentia Cyclica are masterpieces that belong on the list. I get that the dissonance can be off putting but under it is an amazing listen.
Liszt sonata is one of the greatest things ever produced for piano I am triggered
Lol, sorry for the trigger 🤣 I think it's a great piece, just mentioning I've heard the opposite opinion as well. But yeah, I only picked pieces I liked for the video.
@@ryanabshier love your channel, keep crushing
@@brandonmacey964 thanks!
What about Albéniz’s Iberia?
Honestly I don’t understand why la campanella is on most of top because it is less difficult than most liszt pieces and except for the interprétation it’s not harder than hungarian rhapsodie 2