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.
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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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A genuine step up, without a jolt.
A useful leap with guided practice.
This piano transcription conveys a restrained, solemn religious tension, switching between chorale-like passages that should sound organ-like and more narrative, dramatic sections that require clear, concentrated phrasing. No specific technical skills were provided for this work, so the student and teacher will focus chiefly on reducing and distributing the voices to keep choral and recitative lines clear despite the very low overall technical difficulty rating (0/100). The original piece, the St Matthew Passion, holds a central place in Bach's output as a masterwork of sacred Baroque music. Among widely cited reference performances of the full work are recordings conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt and John Eliot Gardiner, noted for their dramatic conviction and historical-minded approach.