Air with Variations No.12, Op.88
Violin and Piano
In brief

This Air with Variations has a lively, sparkling character, alternating a singing theme with virtuosic episodes where the rhythmic drive must stay light and transparent rather than heavy. You will notably face Passages rapides (5.0/5), which require very liberated left‑hand fingers and precise left–right coordination to articulate each figure without losing the pulse, and Phrasing (4.0/5), which asks you to shape lines despite the virtuosity by controlling bow weight and release so the melody remains singing. The piece belongs to Bériot’s body of salon-style variations for violin and piano, intended to showcase the soloist’s technical refinement and expressive grace. I do not give a reference recording here because I am not certain of a single definitive interpretation for this specific work.

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Sheet music

Public-domain sheet music on IMSLP ↗

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Formation

Violin and piano · 2 performers

Required forces
Violin 1 performers
Piano 1 performers
Playable parts
Violin Piano
MusicCoach difficulty
76/100
Advanced
Likely range : 64–88/100
Confidence : 32% · to confirm
BeginnerIntermediateAdvancedVirtuoso
Exam grade
About grade 8

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
72%
Among Charles-Auguste de Bériot
93%
Era
Genre
Estimated skills
Technique
Fast passages
2
Technique
Bow distribution
1
Interpretation
Phrasing
1
Tone
Vibrato
1
Fingering
Complex fingering
1
Technique
Intonation
2
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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