In your opinion, which piano classical piece is the hardest piece ever played by you or someone else?

Question

Please involve all eras of music. Any suggestions are welcome by all. Thank you!

Answer 1

Here are some of the hardest pieces I've attempted (some I've not played yet, but I won't tell you which);
Rachmaninoff's 3rd piano concerto, reputed to be the hardest concerto in the standard repertoire;
Mily Balakirev's Islamey;
Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier 1 & 2 (not hard to play maybe, but hard to play perfectly, and consider that in a fugue, you can't use the damper pedal but you have to keep the notes legato, which means SUBSTITUTIONS. Ouch);
Most anything designed for pianistic flair by Franz Liszt (transcendental études are a good example, also the mephisto waltzes);
Samuel Barber's Piano Concerto;
Prokofiev's Third Piano Concerto (check out the vicious double-note scales and block-chord glissandos in the third movement);
Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto;
The Chopin Etudes, which are VERY hard to play well;
The Chopin Etudes arranged by Godowsky to be even harder, which are increadibly difficult technically, but not so much musically as the originals;
Opus Clavicumbalisticum (hope I spelled that right) and any other piece by Sorabji that's about four or five hours long;
Finally, there's Maurice Ravel's 'Mirroirs', and 'Gaspard de la Nuit', which he wrote with the intention of being harder than the Islamey, which was considered one of the hardest pieces of the time (and still is). I'd say Ravel over-achieved it.

Answer 2

Some of the most fiendishly difficult pieces of piano music were written by the Frenchman Charles-Valentin Alkan (1813-1888). He wrote a set of pieces called, in English, 12 studies in all the minor keys. These include a 'Symphony' and a 'Concerto' for solo piano. Try and hear Marc-Andre Hamelin play the Concerto on Hyperion CDA67569. The first movement alone is 28 minutes long! In fact, listen to any of Marc-Andre's discs. They are full of the most difficult piano music written. Another great disc of fantastically complex music is his two disc set on CDA67411/2 of all Godowsky's Srudies on Chopin's Etudes. Marc-Andre is a total wizard at the piano - every time I listen to him, I wonder how he does it!

Answer 3

The answer you will likely get is the Romantic Era.For the hard level,why not try playing Chopin's music?you will be soon be finding out that you will have to play the music pieces by Chopin really fast on the piano keyboard.If you tihnk Chopin's music is hard and you want to try out the advanced level,Liszt's music will be the next advanced music for you.Try Liszt's piano music at home and you will be sure to know that his music is in the advanced stage.

Answer 4

the hardest one I've actually learned is probably...

Beethoven Piano Sonata no. 32, 1st movement

I've worked on one of the Chopin Scherzos (I'm tempted to say the 2nd one), Liszt's Spanish Rhapsody, and a few other really hard pieces, but never completely finished them... right now I'm playing the Brahms Horn Trio (piano part only, obviously) and that's relatively difficult. nothing compared to the Liszt for instance though...

Answer 5

I had a piano teacher who could bust out Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto, but told me that "Scarbo" from Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit is "practically impossible to play."

Answer 6

After 12 years of classical piano training I can easily play just about anything.... EXCEPT Chopin!!! That man wrote some of the meanest chords I've ever seen! Beautiful music when conquered though!

Answer 7

Most of the above answers were from professionals or very advanced students. I never went beyond early intermediate, but I manage to play Grieg's "To Spring" reasonably well. (Six sharps!) Try as I may, I can never master Schumann's "Whims" aka "Grillen, or Xaver Schwarenka's Polish Dance.

Answer 8

Schoenberg's Piano Concerto, from memory... NOT easy!

Answer 9

Do a google search on Glen Gould and see some of the music he played... he didn't play ANYTHING that was easy and some of his pieces were downright impossible to play.

Answer 10

Rachmaninov's 3rd Piano Concerto has more notes per minute than any other classical composition.