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.
Does this rating look right to you?
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: each movement has its own level — often very different from the opus's overall score.
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 solo-cello suite feels both incisive and meditative, alternating clear polyphonic lines with rougher episodes that expose the raw resonance of the strings. You will notably face the Position du pouce (4.3/5), which requires lifting and stabilizing the thumb on the neck to manage large shifts and high-position passages, and Doubles cordes (violoncelle) (4.3/5), which demand precise finger alignment and pressure to keep intervals clean and the two voices balanced. A 20th-century modern work, it holds an important place among Britten's contributions to the solo cello repertoire, reworking inherited polyphonic textures in a contemporary language.