12 Silhouettes, op. 8
Romantic Piano solo ~18 min
In brief

These little pieces convey a rustic, nostalgic mood, built from singing motifs and sudden contrasts between lightness and restrained expressivity. Technically, pay close attention to Tempo rubato (3.1/5) — you will need to apply slight rhythmic flexibility without losing overall forward motion, keeping the left hand steady — and to the Sustain pedal (Pédale de sustain 3.1/5), which requires precise lifts to avoid blurring the harmonies while maintaining the Romantic color. Composed in the composer's early Romantic period, the Silhouettes are youthful items in his catalogue that already show his taste for folk-like melodies and contrasting miniatures. I do not provide a reference performance here because I am not fully certain about a single, widely recognized recording for this specific set.

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Sheet music

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Is this the right work?
MusicCoach difficulty
35/100
Elementary
Likely range : 23–47/100
Confidence : 35% · to confirm
BeginnerIntermediateAdvancedVirtuoso
Exam grade
About grade 3 to 4

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
18%
Among Antonín Dvořák
10%
Era Romantic
Genre
Estimated skills
Pedaling
Sustain pedal
1
Style
Romantic style
1
Rhythm
Tempo rubato
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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