Bisher habt ihr nichts gebeten in meinem Namen, BWV 87
Piano solo
In brief

This Bach chorale, presented here in a piano transcription, conveys a meditative gravity and contrapuntal clarity where each line has expressive color — you feel both restraint and inner tension of the vocal phrase. You will specifically face the skill “Reading bass clef (2.5/5)”, which here requires accurate reading of low tessitura to preserve the supporting bass, and “Polyphony of three voices or more (2.5/5)”, which demands control of voice balancing to make the contrapuntal inner lines audible without muddiness. The piece belongs to Bach's sacred vocal corpus and fits within his cantata-related output, where airs and chorales often function as concentrated theological meditations when arranged instrumentally. I do not give a reference recording because I am not certain of a specific, widely recognized piano-transcription interpretation for this work.

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  • Play — Bisher habt ihr nichts gebeten in meinem Namen, BWV 87: No. 6, Ich will leiden, ich will schweigen · Johann Sebastian Bach, Leif Aruhn-Solén, Magnus Kjellson, Goteborg Baroque (the player loads on click)

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Sheet music

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MusicCoach difficulty
50/100
Intermediate
Likely range : 38–62/100
Confidence : 32% · to confirm
BeginnerIntermediateAdvancedVirtuoso
Exam grade
About grade 5 to 6

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
47%
Among Johann Sebastian Bach
53%
Era
—
Genre
Estimated skills
Reading
Bass clef reading
1
Interpretation
Phrasing
1
Technique
Three-or-more-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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