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.
Does this rating look right to you?
This rating is computed automatically from heterogeneous sources. It gets things wrong, sometimes badly. If you know this work, your answer is worth more than our computation: it tells us which ratings to review.
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.
The piece feels like an intimate, song-like miniature—almost a lullaby—where a clear melody floats above a quiet, arpeggiated accompaniment; the mood calls for a gentle touch and clarity in the upper register rather than overt drama. On the technical side, hand independence (2.5/5) is key: you must project the principal voice while keeping a steady accompanying figure with the other hand, which requires controlling weight distribution and small wrist adjustments to balance the sound; phrasing (2.5/5) also matters here, asking for shaping of short phrases with slight breath-like accents and measured returns rather than wide rubato. The piece is part of the set titled “Miscellanées” op. 40 and sits within Gade’s smaller-scale, salon-style piano output rather than his major orchestral works. I cannot confidently name a definitive recording for this specific piece, so I omit references rather than risk an error.