Estimated from our difficulty score, not taken from an exam syllabus. Checked against 333 works on the ABRSM syllabus: the exact grade is right 7 times out of 10, and within one grade 99 times out of 100.
Difficulty estimate by MusicCoach on a scale of 1 to 100.
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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Each suggestion combines difficulty gap, risk, confidence and skill overlap. The first two cards in each column are the most useful pedagogically.
The safest next step.
A genuine step up, without a jolt.
A useful leap with guided practice.
This A major sonata feels bright and lively, driven by quick figures and call-and-response phrases that require crisp articulation rather than lingering expressiveness. You will notably use the Connaissance des formes (3.6/5) skill here, which means identifying thematic gestures and short repeats to shape your attacks, and the Lecture clé de fa (3.1/5) skill, which involves precise left-hand placement to support the bass line and negotiate clean jumps without disturbing the melody. It belongs to Scarlatti’s Baroque keyboard output, made up of short, often virtuosic sonatas rather than large-scale symphonic developments. I am not giving a specific recommended recording here, since I prefer not to cite an interpretation unless I can be certain of its exact correspondence to this work.