Piano Forum

Enfant Terrible or Childishly Innocent? – Prokofiev’s Complete Piano Works Now on Piano Street
In our ongoing quest to provide you with a complete library of classical piano sheet music, the works of Sergey Prokofiev have been our most recent focus. As one of the most distinctive and original musical voices from the first half of the 20th century, Prokofiev has an obvious spot on the list of top piano composers. Welcome to the intense, humorous, and lyrical universe of his complete Sonatas, Concertos, character pieces, and transcriptions! Read more >>

Pages: [1] Go Down

Topic: Grading Schubert Piano Sonatas (Read 12847 times)

sauergrandson

PS Silver Member
Full Member
Posts: 161

Grading Schubert Piano Sonatas

on: July 21, 2006, 12:12:57 AM

Can anyone provide the grades for all the Schubert Piano Sonatas, from easiest to hardest ?

Logged

cloches_de_geneve

PS Silver Member
Sr. Member
Posts: 439

Re: Grading Schubert Piano Sonatas

Reply #1 on: August 01, 2006, 08:09:48 AM

It's a good question. The problem is that you probably won't get an answer here, at least not a complete one, because the Schubert sonatas are underplayed and you won't find individuals that have the required experience for a complete grading (if there is any "official" grading, I don't know). Having played some, but not all of them, I will try to rank the last 8 in terms of technical difficulty (from hardest to easiest).

1. Sonata c minor, D 958
2. Sonata D major, D 850
3. Sonata A major, D 959
4. Sonata B-flat major, D 960
5. Sonata a minor, D 845
6. Sonata G major, D 894
7. Sonata A major, D 664
8. Sonata a minor, D 784

Apart from the first two that can be set apart as very hard, differencences among the other sonatas are less important imo. For example, 7 and 8 are a close call, personally I find the last mvt of 664 very challenging to master well, more difficult than the last mvt of 784 which, even though virtuosistic, flows better.

PS: I am bewitched by Schubert's sonatas, after having tasted them, it is difficult for me to go back to Beethoven and like his sonatas as much.

Logged

"It's true that I've driven through a number of red lights on occasion, but on the other hand I've stopped at a lot of green ones but never gotten credit for it." -- Glenn Gould

Sign-up to post reply

Pages: [1] Go Up