Polonaise, Op. 26, No. 2 in E-flat minor
Polonaise Piano solo
In brief

This Polonaise has a dancing yet dark character: hammered accents and ornamental figures give it a dramatic, resolved gait rather than a purely lyrical one. Technically, priority should be given to the Octaves (2.5/5) to secure evenness and a clean attack in the leaps and fast octave passages, and to General Technique (2.5/5), which here means finger control and precision in rapid passages and hand changes. It belongs to Chopin’s set of polonaises for piano, where he stylizes the national dance into a more concert-like and expressive form.

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MusicCoach difficulty
76/100
Advanced
Likely range : 64–88/100
Confidence : 44% · to confirm
BeginnerIntermediateAdvancedVirtuoso
Exam grade
About grade 8

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
85%
Among Frédéric Chopin
93%
Era
90%
Genre
Estimated skills
Style
Character and style
1
Interpretation
Dynamics
1
Technique
Octaves
1
Technique
Fast passages
1
Rhythm
Dotted rhythms
1
Technique
General technique
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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