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.
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 piano cycle has a often playful and crisp character, alternating between detached clarity and more dream-like episodes that require quick shifts from concrete rhythms to floating textures. The Polyrhythmie 2 contre 3 (3.1/5) appears as hands that must articulate independently to keep offset pulses — the concrete gesture is to maintain a stable primary pulse with one hand while the other plays its cross-rhythm without dragging the tempo — and the Style impressionniste (3.1/5) calls for careful touch and subtle dynamic shading to bring out harmonic colors and piano resonance. Placed in Britten’s modernist period and among his early piano works, it already reveals a search for color and character that anticipates his later vocal and orchestral writing.