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Play — Schubert Piano Sonata No 21 D 960 B flat major András Schiff · Sonorum Concentus Haydn & Schubert (the player loads on click)
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Play — Piano Sonata No. 21 in B-Flat Major, D. 960: I. Molto moderato · Franz Schubert, Paul Lewis (the player loads on click)
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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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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.
One rarely plays the whole work. We do not yet have a level specific to each of these movements: they carry the opus's level, which does not say which one is the most approachable.
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 sonata projects a sense of broad breathing and inward song, with long lyrical lines that unfold before being interrupted by sharper, more driven episodes; think in large sound-areas and extended phrases rather than isolated motifs. You will face particular challenges in Phrasing and Dynamics: phrasing here means shaping extended singing lines with precise legato and coordinated arm support to connect leaps and breaths, while dynamics require very subtle control of hand weight to bring out inner voices without hardening the accompaniment. In terms of context, the piece belongs to Schubert's body of piano sonatas and holds an important place in his piano output. I do not give a reference recording here because I am not completely certain of a single widely recognized version for this specific work.