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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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 sonata feels dramatic and organ-like: it alternates powerful chordal blocks with flowing passages that suggest two-keyboard organ writing, and lyrical episodes that require keeping a singing line over a dense accompaniment. Technically, pay attention to Analysis harmonique (3.6/5): you will need to identify modulations and inner voices to balance chords and clarify harmonic accents under the fingers, and to Connaissance des formes (3.6/5) because the multi-section structure demands clear shaping of transitions, repeats and the recapitulation to sustain the musical narrative. The piece sits in the Romantic repertoire and shows how Cherubini, while grounded in classical forms, moved toward darker sonorities and denser keyboard writing in his instrumental output. I do not provide a reference interpretation because I am not sufficiently certain of a single widely recognized recording for this exact work.