Most difficult pieces written by a "real" composer?

[slurred_beat]

Hi all. I wonder which pieces are the most difficult pieces written by a "real" composer? (I think if you open a sheet music program and click in lots of notes you can make something impossible but that's not a "real" piece by a "real" composer if you understand) I have heard its Islamey by Balakriev and Gaspard de la nuit by Ravel but is that really true? Are those the hardest?

[billym]

Great question. I won't be able to give the best answer but here's a video that may be of use to you. It goes over some pieces that are considered the hardest piano pieces. Islamey and Gaspard are among them I believe.

&t=1043s

[lelle]

I think the Liszt Don Juan Fantasy is considered to be one of the most difficult pieces out there.







But its a pretty terrible piece in my opinion, so I shall not grieve the fact that I'll never be able to play it competently

[ranjit]

Well, if you include famous adaptations of pieces, those by Horowitz, Cziffra and Hamelin could fit the bill. Also maybe Godowsky-Chopin.

[lostinidlewonder]

What about composers like Finnissy, Sorabji, Xenakis?

[ranjit]

Finnissy, Sorabji, Xenakis?

He said "real" composers 

Just kidding, I like the shorter Sorabji pieces quite a bit.

Like this one for example, although I don't think it fits the bill for the hardest piece ever.

[visitor]

I acquired the score to Virtuoso Alice by David Del Tredici a number if years ago after seeing it and instantly falling in love with what I saw on the page and heard in my head as I viewed the pages for the first time with no aural preconcept as I had never heard of it before ,and it's amazing  here are his program notes and a good video performance of it which we lacked for a number of years I'm glad efforts to get this noticed by pianists is paying off a little

This piece is tough as heck once it gets going it's relentless and it's legnth adds to the difficulty

Most of the score is a migraine headache inducing ocean of black and white (In a good way lol)




Two events conspired to bring about Virtuoso Alice (1984), my first piano composition in more than twenty years. One was the commissioning request from Michael Sellars, director and founder of the William Kapell Piano Foundation, for a work to celebrate the grand, romantic tradition of piano playing. Another was an evening spent listening, for the first time, to rare recordings of legendary "golden age" pianists—Hofmann, Friedman, de Pachmann, Rachmaninoff, et al. So moved was I by the expressive idiosyncrasy of their playing—the unexpected, extravagant rubati and the breathtaking, effortless-sounding technical feats—that I decided to compose a piece memorializing and exploiting such pianistic virtues. Simultaneously, the idea of a paraphrase came to mind. The Harvard Dictionary of Music defines paraphrase as a "reworking and free arrangement of well-known melodies, such as Liszt's concert paraphrases of Wagnerian operas.'

In Virtuoso Alice, I chose a melody of my own for this elaboration or "free arrangement"the "Acrostic Song" from Final Alice, written in 1976 for soprano and orchestra. The first part of Virtuoso Alice, though pianistically elaborate and highly embellished, follows the path of the original song quite faithfully. The second part, "Fantasia," is more freely associative and ranges through distant keys with bravura embellishment. This leads to a cadenza, then a reminiscence of the opening Acrostic theme and finally a repeated bell-tone, tolling an insistent, dissonant F-natural amid swirling, rising A major scale figures. Even as the motion quiets and the piece ends, this F-natural continues and is never resolved—a gentle, stabbing pain, throbbing on and on.

Virtuoso Alice is dedicated to Anton Nel, who premiered it.

- David Del Tredici, 2001

[achoo42]

Up to 1920:

[minor9th]

Where does Boulez's Sonata No.2 fit in the difficulty continuum? Wasn't it considered unplayable when he first wrote it?

[ranjit]

The Bartok piano concerto's second movement was considered unplayable until Cziffra played it. Perhaps that could make a good candidate.

[lelle]

I find that strange, I assume Bartok could play it though? And Bartok, while a virtuoso pianist, would not have been miles above the other virtuosos of the day.

[harukipiano]

Personally, I read Islamey, and Ravel Gaspard la Nuit, and their not harder than Stravinsky's Petrushka, and not harder than Brahm's Variations on a theme of Paganini

[harukipiano]

And compared tot he firebird, the petrushka is longer and overall insanely hard, and there's significantly less people that can play petrushka compared to gaspard la nuit and islamey, there's literally a 13 year old that's playing islamey.

[lelle]

Those paganini variations by Brahms are probably up there among the hardest pieces? It's one of those pieces that I am never going to touch because it's just not worth all the hard work 

[nw746]

It's fairly subjective, as everyone finds different things difficult. I would probably say, for me at least, the 1837/1838 versions of Liszt's Transcendental Etudes and Paganini Etudes. For example passages like this seem almost impossible to play at tempo


(The 1851/1852 versions are of course also quite difficult but less extravagantly so.)

The most difficult "standard repertoire" piece for me specifically is Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata, which is part of why I became obsessed with it. Potentially other people find it much easier than I do for various reasons though. It doesn't have any extremely punishing passages in the same way as Liszt does, it just has a lot of complex running passages requiring perfect fingering, some difficult leaps, fast tempi (I am physically incapable of playing fast at this point in my life), and of course it's very long and has no real easy sections where you can take a break (this is also why Rachmaninov 3 is sometimes regarded as the most difficult piece in the repertoire; no individual passage in it is exceptionally difficult but you have to play continuously for 45 minutes with maybe three or four short breaks).

[thalbergmad]

The Tausig Halka Variations would pose huge problems for all but the most mechanically gifted pianists.

[anacrusis]

Is it this one you are referring to?

[slurred_beat]

Thank you all. But omg I look at some of these and think how is this even possible?  How do you work to get so good I can't even understand? Its amazing.

[thalbergmad]

Is it this one you are referring to?

Indeed that is it.

[lelle]

Haha that Tausig piece is pretty stupid, if I may be so bold  Doesn't seem worth the effort to learn, imo.

[ronde_des_sylphes]

Yes the Tausig is very difficult.. there is a really nasty left hand passage in running sixths too.


Some ones by slightly lesser known composers:

LEFT HAND ONLY:

A curiosity which is mostly Liszt, but isn't entirely. Ignore the YT version purporting to be by Horowitz, it is a fake sped up recording.

And if I may be so bold, this fantasy is one of the hardest things I've ever attempted and I believe at the top end difficulty wise of the genre - the closing three mins are extremely demanding.

(my studio recording)

[ronde_des_sylphes]

Super difficult Liszt outwith the original versions of the TEs and Paganinis: