Piano Forum

Topic: Difficulties: Hungarian Rhapsody no.2 or Paganini Etudes: No.6 in A  (Read 1861 times)

Offline mjin1

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Just as the topic suggests, I'd like some opinions about the difficulties of these two pieces, which one do you guys think would typically be harder give or take. I know that 'difficulty' is usually pianist specific, however, these two have a broad range of technical demands...

FYI I'm talking about the Grandes Etudes de Paganini not the transcendental original one. I don't know what it's called. I'm working on the revised version composed in 1851.

And, for those who don't know, the 6th Paganini etude is a piano version of Paganini's 24th Caprice.

Either way, I've started both of them (Hungarian Rhapsody no.2 from the Friska ) and I think that as far as performance speed goes, Rhapsody is harder. Though, even though the 6th Etude's speed isn't comparable to Rhapsody's, what I think can make it tricky is that each variation more or less requires a different piano technique. So far I'm up to variation 5, and have had to deal with polyrhythm, rapid tenths, and rapid staccato octaves just to name a few.

what do you guys think? Thanks.