Marche et Cavatine de Lucia de Lammermoor, S. 398
Romantic March Piano solo ~8 min
In brief

This Marche and Cavatine combines a ceremonial march character with broad, operatic lyricism, shifting between crisp martial figures and expansive singing lines that require making the melody project through a dense accompaniment. You will specifically need to work on Tempo rubato (3.1/5) — here that means allowing small, measured elasticities in the melodic line without losing forward momentum — and on the Sustain Pedal (3.1/5), which calls for precise lifting and renewing to keep chordal textures clear while connecting the cantabile. The piece is a Romantic-period piano transcription/paraphrase of themes from the opera Lucia di Lammermoor, typical of Liszt’s operatic arrangements for solo piano.

MusicCoach difficulty
89/100
Master repertoire
Likely range : 77–100/100
Confidence : 40% · 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
89%
Among Franz Liszt
98%
Era Romantic
97%
Genre
Estimated skills
Pedaling
Sustain pedal
1
Style
Romantic style
1
Rhythm
Tempo rubato
1
Tone
Touch control
1
Interpretation
Dynamics
1
Technique
Fast passages
1
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