Album 10, A.284
Modern Piano solo ~20 min
In brief

The piece has a rippling, Brazilian-inflected character with an impressionistic color, where overlapping motifs create a flowing sense of motion rather than a single linear melody. You will need to work the Polyrhythm 2 against 3 (3.1/5) — here that means coordinating one hand playing ternary groupings while the other maintains duplets or steady eighths, keeping value equality and a flexible tempo; and the Impressionist Style (3.1/5), which requires refining chord touch and pedaling to produce subtle harmonic colors instead of sharp attacks. The work is part of his set of short piano pieces from his modern period, where he condenses local influences and orchestral textures into miniature forms. I do not provide a recording reference because I am not 100% certain of a widely recognized interpretation for this specific piece.

MusicCoach difficulty
55/100
Intermediate
Likely range : 43–67/100
Confidence : 35% · 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
72%
Among Heitor Villa-Lobos
54%
Era Modern
Genre
Estimated skills
Rhythm
Polyrhythm 2 against 3
1
Style
Modern and contemporary style
1
Technique
Scales and arpeggios
1
Technique
Hand independence
1
Interpretation
Dynamics
1
Pedaling
Sustain pedal
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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