Sonata in G minor, K.31, L.231
Baroque Sonata Piano solo ~4 min
In brief

This G minor sonata feels sharp and animated, alternating percussive responses with chordal passages that convey a small-scale dramatic urgency rather than extended lyricism. You will be especially challenged by the skill labeled “Connaissance des formes (3.6/5)”, which here means quickly recognizing short phrases and repeats to plan breathing and hand weight shifts, and by “Ornements baroque (3.1/5)”, which requires precise execution of small embellishments (tight trills and mordents) integrated into the line without breaking flow. The piece belongs to the Baroque period and is part of Scarlatti's corpus of short, concentrated keyboard sonatas. I do not provide a reference performance because I cannot assert with certainty a specific authoritative recording for this particular sonata.

MusicCoach difficulty
55/100
Intermediate
Likely range : 43–67/100
Confidence : 40% · to confirm
BeginnerIntermediateAdvancedVirtuoso
Exam grade
About grade 6

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.

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
48%
Among Domenico Scarlatti
51%
Era Baroque
38%
Genre
Estimated skills
Theory
Harmonic analysis
1
Theory
Knowledge of forms
1
Reading
Bass clef reading
1
Ornaments
Baroque ornaments
1
Style
Baroque style
1
Technique
Hand independence
1
Interpretation
Dynamics
1
Technique
Fast passages
1
What to play next?

Each suggestion combines difficulty gap, risk, confidence and skill overlap. The first two cards in each column are the most useful pedagogically.

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