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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The safest next step.
A genuine step up, without a jolt.
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This D major sonata feels bright and sprightly, with quick, articulated figures that alternate between brisk virtuosity and brief singing episodes; its character is driven by rhythmic clarity and a buoyant, forward momentum rather than expansive lyricism. The main technical challenges will come from Connaissance des formes (3.6/5), which here requires identifying and balancing the binary sections and their repeats so you phrase and prepare cadences appropriately, and from Lecture clé de fa (3.1/5), which demands accurate reading of the left-hand bass to manage leaps and maintain contrapuntal continuity; in practice this means preparing hand shifts before jumps and ensuring a focused bass attack while keeping the right-hand figures clear. The work belongs to the Baroque keyboard sonata tradition and is one of Scarlatti’s pieces that highlights the crossover between harpsichord idiom and later keyboard technique.