Mazurka in A minor Op.17 No.4
Mazurka Piano solo ~2 min
In brief

This mazurka feels dance-like yet restrained, combining rustic accents with melancholy surges that require balancing earthiness and refinement. The main technical challenges will be phrasing (4.3/5), which here means shaping each musical sentence with slight variations of attack and release so the line breathes without breaking, and dotted rhythms (4.3/5), which call for precise wrist movement and control of note lengths to produce the uneven but steady triple feel. In Chopin's output, this mazurka belongs to his contributions to national dances for piano, where folk elements are transformed by Romantic sensitivity. I have not listed a reference recording out of caution, but we can identify suitable interpretations together with your teacher.

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  • Play — Eric Lu – Mazurka in A minor Op. 17 No. 4 (second stage) · Chopin Institute (the player loads on click)

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  • Play — Mazurka No. 11 in E Minor, Op. 17 No. 2. Lento, ma non troppo · Frédéric Chopin, Jean-Marc Luisada (the player loads on click)

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Sheet music

Public-domain sheet music on IMSLP ↗

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MusicCoach difficulty
49/100
Intermediate
Likely range : 44–55/100
Confidence : 62% · fair confidence
BeginnerIntermediateAdvancedVirtuoso
Exam grade
On the syllabus: Grade 6 ABRSM

Official level, taken from the exam syllabus.

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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Difficulty sources
ABRSM (syllabus)
Grade 6
55/100 normalised
MusicCoach curation
Grade 5
44/100 normalised
Relative difficulty
19%
Among Frédéric Chopin
51%
Era
29%
Genre
Estimated skills
Rhythm
Dotted rhythms
1
Rhythm
Tempo rubato
1
Interpretation
Phrasing
2
Interpretation
Dynamics
1
Style
Romantic style
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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