Ab irato, S.143, "The Perfect Etude"
Romantic Étude Piano solo ~5 min
In brief

This piece projects a tense, biting energy, alternating percussive flashes and streams of chords that feel like contained anger rather than lyrical singing. You will face specifically Scales and arpeggios (4.0/5) — here you must use fast, even finger work combined with wrist rotation to preserve clarity and evenness — and Rapid passages (4.0/5), which require precise hand shifts, short anchoring touches and anticipatory jumps to keep the line free of catches. From the Romantic period, it occupies the place of an extreme virtuoso étude in Liszt's piano output, designed to develop digital aggression and executional precision more than simple cantability. I do not cite a reference interpretation because I am not 100% certain of a single, universally acknowledged recording for this specific piece.

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Sheet music

Public-domain sheet music on IMSLP ↗

Is this the right work?
MusicCoach difficulty
100/100
Master repertoire
Likely range : 88–100/100
Confidence : 45% · to confirm
BeginnerIntermediateAdvancedVirtuoso
Exam grade
Beyond grade 8

The grade scale stops at 8; this work belongs to concert or diploma repertoire.

Difficulty estimate by MusicCoach on a scale of 1 to 100.

Where this work sits
050100

Most works cluster between 45 and 65: a small score gap often marks a real step. The highlighted bar shows this work among those for the same instrument.

The MusicCoach difficulty measures a work's overall demands (technique, reading, stamina) on a shared 0-100 scale, consolidated from editorial and pedagogical reference points (Henle, exam syllabuses, curation) and our own analyses. It measures neither musical value nor the practice time YOU will need: two musicians of the same level can experience the same work very differently depending on their strengths (hands used to octaves, quick sight-reading…). The confidence reflects how many reference points sit behind the score and how well they agree — a lightly documented score is flagged “to validate”. For a truly personal bearing, the diagnostic and your space compare each work to YOUR estimated level, which the score alone cannot do.

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Relative difficulty
100%
Among Franz Liszt
100%
Era Romantic
100%
Genre
Estimated skills
Technique
Scales and arpeggios
1
Technique
Fast passages
2
Pedaling
Sustain pedal
1
Style
Romantic style
1
Rhythm
Tempo rubato
1
Tone
Touch control
1
Pedaling
Half-pedalling
1
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A useful leap with guided practice.

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