Es ist das Heil uns kommen her, BuxWV186
Baroque Piano solo ~3 min
In brief

This chorale-based prelude has a meditative, solemn character, alternating singing melody lines with tight accompanying figures that require steady rhythmic grounding. Technically, you will need to work on Reading bass clef (Lecture clé de fa, 3.1/5) to keep both hands independent and the voices clearly distributed on the keyboard, and Baroque ornaments (Ornements baroque, 3.1/5) which call for quick, clean execution of embellishments without breaking the melodic flow. The piece belongs to the Baroque repertoire and is one of Buxtehude’s chorale settings (BuxWV186), reflecting his liturgical keyboard writing. I do not give a reference performance here because I am not fully certain of a single definitive recording to recommend.

MusicCoach difficulty
30/100
Elementary
Likely range : 18–42/100
Confidence : 40% · to confirm
BeginnerIntermediateAdvancedVirtuoso
Exam grade
About grade 3

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
10%
Among Dietrich Buxtehude
4%
Era Baroque
Genre
Estimated skills
Reading
Bass clef reading
1
Ornaments
Baroque ornaments
1
Style
Baroque style
1
Technique
Legato
1
Interpretation
Phrasing
1
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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