The most difficult piano pieces EVER written!

These are the most terrifying, challenging, difficult pieces ever composed for the piano. I'm only including pieces I consider to be good pieces...which I know is subjective...but I didn't want this to be a list on 5+ hour pieces or pieces with no musical content that ONLY strive to be difficult.

Let me know the hardest pieces you've ever played!

#classicalpiano #music #pianomusic #liszt #chopin #beethoven

[mr.k]

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.

[Stevie-Steele]

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!

[chironchiron]

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.

[kristian]

The second movement of Alkan's sonata is just mindblowingly difficult. It even has an 8(!) voice fugue in it.

[DanielGX]

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

[Silvermoonmaker]

the description is blatant sorabji slander 💀

[mstalcup]

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.

[e.de_Haan]

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.

[allanolivier]

Im glad I dont have to play those pieces! Well presented. Love to hear more of your work.

[SkibidiChoppyDaddy]

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 Good video tho😁

[junyou]

You should have picked Spanish Fantasy no.253 for Liszt. It’s definitely the hardest Liszt piece

[thisismoyukhsworld]

Brahms' Handel Variations and Fugue, are influenced from Beethoven's Eroica Variations and Fugue. And Eroica is much more harder and virtuosic than Handel.

[markstephenson]

Hey, Ryan, are you familiar with Carl Nielsen's op.53 Klavermusic?

[MythicGod]

Also Beethoven's diabelli variations is also more challenging than La Campanella, Hungarian Rhapsodies, Mazeppa, And Gaspard De La Nuit

[gregrice]

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?

[RasielSuarez]

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.

[chwu-nedf]

Even if you're just considering standard repertoire, Chopin ballade 4, Schubert Wanderer Fantasy, and Liszt B minor sonata in no way deserve to be on this list. You are right in this case though on Beethoven Hammerklavier and Ravel Gaspard de la Nuit.

[Grotius-hswo]

I say that Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto 3 is one of the most difficult pieces of the piano repertoire

[TwiZoneInc]

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.

[bw]

Schumann Toccata, Feux Follets, Brahms Paganini Variations…The 3rd Sonata is harder than the 4th Ballade.