Henle's difficulty ratings

[slobone]

Sorry if this has been discussed here before, but I just found out that Henle has difficulty ratings on their website for all the pieces they publish. This is great news, because I'm working without a teacher, and it's been hard finding pieces at just the right level for me (pretty much level 5, according to them).

https://www.henle.de/us/search/index.html?Instrumentation=Keyboard%20instruments&Instrument=Piano%20solo

The levels vary from 1 to 9. Here are their examples of the various levels:

Level        Example
1(easy)    Bach, Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach, nos. 4 and 5
2            Bach, Well-Tempered Clavier I, no. 1 Prelude C major
3            Beethoven, Piano Sonatas op. 49,1 and 2
4(medium)    Grieg, Lyric Pieces op. 12, no. 4
5            Schumann, Fantasy Pieces op. 12, no. 1
6            Chopin, Nocturnes op. 27, nos. 1 and 2
7(difficult)    Beethoven, Piano Sonata op. 10, no. 3
8            Beethoven, Piano Sonata op. 81a
9            Schumann, Toccata op. 7

To find the level of a specific piece, look up the Henle publication it's in on their website, then click Contents. For most publications, each individual piece has its own level, eg each Chopin mazurka. You can also sort by level if you want to find all the pieces at a particular level.

[williampiano]

I think the leveling for some of the Chopin Polonaises and the Bach WTC are a little off, along with  a few other things I noticed on there, but other than that it seems like a pretty useful tool. I never knew they had this. Thank you for sharing!

[stoudemirestat]

Thanks for sharing! Very interesting. Much better rankings than on pianostreet, for sure

[chopinlover96]

This is very useful. Thank you for sharing!! The rankings for the Chopin Scherzi are a little of I think listing the 4th as the easiest giving a 7/9 whereas the other 3 got 7 or 8/9.