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 piano piece alternates virtuosic outbursts with conversational, intimate passages, demanding precision and clarity rather than broad romantic gestures. You will face challenges in Harmonic analysis (3.8/5), because you must quickly identify modulating progressions to shape the contrasting episodes, and in Sustain pedal (3.1/5), where the physical action is to apply short, precise pedal changes to preserve voice transparency in dense textures. The work belongs to Dukas’s late-romantic output and reflects his interest in variation form while remaining more compact than his better-known orchestral works. I do not provide a recommended recording here because I do not have a thoroughly verified, specific reference for this piece.