Order of difficulty of these pieces?

[rihyun]

Hello,

Please understand that I'm not trying to start a war or a contest to see what piece is the hardest; I just want to get a general idea of the difficulties of my favorite pieces.

If you could, please, rank these pieces in descending order of difficulty (that is, hardest to least difficult (I'll refrain from saying "easiest" because I frankly find none of these pieces even close to being easy)). Please consider both musical and technical difficulty.

If you're unfamiliar with particular works, feel free to omit them from your list.

(List is not ranked so don't judge me on this!)
Balakirev's Islamey
Stravinsky's Three Movements from Petrushka
Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit (Ondine)
Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit (Le Gibet)
Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit (Scarbo)
Chopin's Ballade No. 2
Chopin's Fantasie-Impromptu
Beethoven's Appassionata
Liszt's Mazeppa
Liszt's Feux Follets
Liszt's La Campanella

Thank you.

[communist]

it depends on the pianist.

[pianisten1989]

.

[imbetter]

Hello,

Please understand that I'm not trying to start a war or a contest to see what piece is the hardest; I just want to get a general idea of the difficulties of my favorite pieces.

If you could, please, rank these pieces in descending order of difficulty (that is, hardest to least difficult (I'll refrain from saying "easiest" because I frankly find none of these pieces even close to being easy)). Please consider both musical and technical difficulty.

If you're unfamiliar with particular works, feel free to omit them from your list.

(List is not ranked so don't judge me on this!)
Balakirev's Islamey
Stravinsky's Three Movements from Petrushka
Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit (Ondine)
Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit (Le Gibet)
Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit (Scarbo)
Chopin's Ballade No. 2
Chopin's Fantasie-Impromptu
Beethoven's Appassionata
Liszt's Mazeppa
Liszt's Feux Follets
Liszt's La Campanella

Thank you.

scarbo
islamey
mazeppa
feux follets
appassionata
ondine
petrushka
ballade 2
la campanella
le gibet
fantasy impromptu

hope i helped

[rihyun]

scarbo
islamey
mazeppa
feux follets
appassionata
ondine
petrushka
ballade 2
la campanella
le gibet
fantasy impromptu

hope i helped

Thanks. I agree with most of your list, but I frankly believe that Petrushka (at least Movement III) is much harder than Islamey.

[teccomin]

I will only rank the pieces I have studied/tried to study

Most difficult
Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit (Ondine)
Beethoven's Appassionata
Chopin's Ballade No. 2
Liszt's La Campanella
Chopin's Fantasie-Impromptu

[pianisten1989]

Seriously?! Not another "Most difficult piece"-thread!??! Will you ever get sick of ranking stuff that is impossible to rank?!

[jbmorel78]

Perhaps it would be a good idea for you to read through them yourself to have an idea of which lie best in your fingers, which stir the greatest response from you musically (this will fuel your work ethic), and which address weaknesses in your technical "arsenal" that you wish to improve?

Best,
JBM

[prongated]

Seriously?! Not another "Most difficult piece"-thread!??! Will you ever get sick of ranking stuff that is impossible to rank?!

Check out when the OP posted it though...so many old threads have been bumped in the past month or 2, and in most cases, the OP has actually stopped posting in this forum!

[kris_k]

I vote for that Islamey is the hardest, of all. Well, it's my opinion after all.
But, as pianisten  1989 mentioned , it's impossible, because they are different like "Which is better between cheese and computer.".
Although it is not impossible.
If you have something like a topic (for example, difficult in tempo). In this case, I think you mean by 'hardest to play' which varies from each pianist.
Anyway, I think that this would help (though I didn't even understand what I am saying.)

P.S. I can learn La Campanella all by myself. My teacher says Islamey is the hardest of all," Behold kids, the hardest song of all.*then he open a youtube video*).

[mikey6]

scarbo
islamey
mazeppa
feux follets
appassionata
ondine
petrushka
ballade 2
la campanella
le gibet
fantasy impromptu

hope i helped

Really?  have you ever played Le Gibet? Coz it certainly ain't no where NEAR down the bottom! Don't think just coz it's slow, it's 'technically' easy!
Now I feel I have to back up my thoughts and compare the rest though...I HATE these things! 

[prongated]

Well, it depends right? I find dealing with sound and tone not so hard, so I agree with where imbetter put Le Gibet in that list. In fact, I find campanella harder than ballade 2, and I'm pretty sure feux follets is generally considered harder than mazeppa...but indeed, let's face it, these rankings are pretty silly to do, especially the pieces in the top 7 - they all belong to that ridiculously hard pieces category!

[point of grace]

i'll tell you the difficulties for me, it doest mean it is this way...

Chopin's Fantasie-Impromptu
Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit (Le Gibet)
Beethoven's Appassionata
Liszt's La Campanella
Stravinsky's Three Movements from Petrushka
Chopin's Ballade No. 2
Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit (Ondine)
Liszt's Mazeppa
Liszt's Feux Follets
Balakirev's Islamey
Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit (Scarbo)

[magio]

Very difficult choice of-----difficult pieces.If i would asked to make'a musical PYRAMID(!)' I would put Chopin down then Stravinsky and Liszt.At the top of pyramid difficulty i would put both balakirev and ravel of course which requires top technique,good mood and much effort too!

[megadodd]

Old post, I saw this yesterday.
Just have to say that I played through the first technical bar to occour in every one of these pieces (almost).
And holy sh*t, I really wish I didn't. There will be no Ravel Ondine for me for the next ten years. Ruined my collage goals.

[harukipiano]

In my opinion
Hardest
All 3 movements of Petrushka
Ravel Gaspard la nuit (Scarbo)
Islamey
Gaspard la nuit (ondine)
Gaspard la nuit (Le gebit)
Liszt Feux Follets
Liszt Mazeppa
Beethoven Appasionata
Chopin Ballade 2 (This one is the 2nd least hardest out of 4 in my opinion, the hardest is the 4th ballade, and the easiest the 3rd.)
Chopin Fantasie Impromptu (A lot of kids age 8-12 play this)

Least hardest

[maul]

In my opinion
Hardest
All 3 movements of Petrushka
Ravel Gaspard la nuit (Scarbo)
Islamey
Gaspard la nuit (ondine)
Gaspard la nuit (Le gebit)
Liszt Feux Follets
Liszt Mazeppa
Beethoven Appasionata
Chopin Ballade 2 (This one is the 2nd least hardest out of 4 in my opinion, the hardest is the 4th ballade, and the easiest the 3rd.)
Chopin Fantasie Impromptu (A lot of kids age 8-12 play this)

Least hardest

Finally, a rational response. The others are a laugh riot.

[dizzyfingers]

why did harukipiano resurrect this one-of-many-of-the-same post in 2021, 10 years after the last post from 2011?
and why did maul resurrect it again today, 4 years later, really not adding anything at all ... how did he even find it?   
and why do I bother responding to this post?

[lelle]

why did harukipiano resurrect this silly post in 2021, 10 years after the last post from 2011?
and why did maul resurrect it again today, 4 years later, really not adding anything at all ... how did he even find it?  ... there's got to be a couple dozen hardest pieces post since 5 years ago that could be responded to as well ...
and why do I bother responding to this post?

The mysteries of the universe are endless.

Oops now I did it too!

[transitional]

haha nice replies!