These recordings are found automatically, and the machine still gets it wrong. One click from you — yes or no — fixes the catalogue for every musician who opens this page after you. Across our 10,000 works, your answer is our only real quality check.
An arrangement or transcription is fine: if you recognise the work, answer yes. Answer no if it is a different work, a different composer, or if the recording does not play.
-
Play — Frédéric Chopin ‒ Prelude in C-sharp minor, Op.45 · Medtnaculus (the player loads on click)
Is this the right work? -
Play — Prelude in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 45. Sostenuto · Frédéric Chopin, Maurizio Pollini (the player loads on click)
Is this the right work?
No account is required and no personal data is collected.
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.
This Prelude in C-sharp minor creates a dark, introspective mood, with hushed replies and occasional dramatic accents that require careful shaping of the melodic line. You will need to focus especially on Nuances (2.5/5) — here that means finely balancing the gradation between the principal voice and the accompaniment so the whispered responses remain audible without blurring — and on Tempo rubato (2.5/5), which involves very small timing adjustments (slight anticipations or delays in the right hand) while keeping the left-hand pulse steady. Listed as Op. 45 in Chopin’s catalogue, it belongs to his set of solo piano preludes and occupies a distinct, concentrated place in that repertoire. I am not giving a recommended reference performance because I am not 100% certain of a single widely recognized recording for this specific piece.