Es ist ein trotzig und verzagt Ding, BWV 176
Piano solo beta difficulty
In brief

On piano, this piece feels at once defiant and wistful, with crisp motives alongside singing lines that persist and respond. You will specifically face Legato (2.5/5): you must sustain continuity in the melodic line by adjusting finger pressure and wrist motion to connect notes smoothly, and Two-voice polyphony (Polyphonie à deux voix) (2.5/5): you need to bring out two independent lines by managing dynamic balance and finger allocation between voices. The work comes from Bach's baroque output and sits within his vocal/cantata-related repertoire, here adapted for keyboard while preserving his characteristic contrapuntal writing.

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Is this the right work?
MusicCoach difficulty
48/100
Intermediate
Likely range : 36–60/100
Confidence : 20% · to confirm
BeginnerIntermediateAdvancedVirtuoso
Exam grade
About grade 5

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
41%
Among Johann Sebastian Bach
48%
Era
Genre
Estimated skills
Technique
Legato
1
Interpretation
Phrasing
1
Technique
Two-voice polyphony
1
Style
Baroque 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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