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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The safest next step.
A genuine step up, without a jolt.
A useful leap with guided practice.
This St. Mark Passion, played on piano, unfolds with a dark, driven narrative: breathless recitatives and choral-like episodes that require keeping a clear line amid overlapping textures. You will particularly need to work on Bass-clef reading (Lecture clé de fa, 2.5/5) — here that means quickly locating bass lines and handling leaps and clef reading for the left hand — and on Dynamics (Nuances, 2.5/5), because the physical task is shaping voice-leading while avoiding excessive buildup when multiple voices overlap. The dating and exact form of this score are uncertain in the Bach catalogue; the work is known as one of the Passions whose original is lost and is often addressed through reconstructions. I do not provide a reference performance here because I am not fully certain of a definitive recording for this specific work.