Cello and piano · 2 performers
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 cello sonata projects a burning, often songlike intensity, alternating lyrical, sustained lines with more rhythmically incisive episodes where the cello engages in forthright dialogue with the piano. You will face specific technical demands on Vibrato (violoncelle) (3.6/5) — here you must control vibrato width and speed to color long melodic lines without weighing them down — and on Legato d'archet (violoncelle) (3.6/5), which requires very smooth bow changes and precise pressure control to sustain continuous phrasing across wide intervals. The work belongs to the Romantic period and is one of the composer's significant contributions to the cello-and-piano repertoire, occupying a recognized place among his chamber works. I do not list a reference interpretation because I am not 100% certain of a single widely recognized recording for this specific sonata.