Chopin Preludes....

[nanabush]

Hi I was wondering if someone could put the Chopin preludes in Order of difficulty...

The one's I can play are:

C major, G major, E minor, C # minor, C minor, B major, A minor...  I know these are the easier preludes, and I want to at some point have learnt them all.. I want to know where to go next...

[bernhard]

Have a look here:

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,3827.msg34579.html#msg34579
(grades for all preludes)

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[nanabush]

Wow thanks, forgot to check first. sry

[jhon]

Just to add, here's another rating provided by a guy named Alan Chan (from his website https://www.geocities.com/alanchan1048576/mus/music.html)

<very easy> 7, 20, 4, 6, 2, 15, 21, 11, 9, 17, 13, 10, 23, 3, 14, 1, 18, 5, 12, 19, 22, 24, 8, 16 <very hard>

I think though that the one Bernhard gave is more accurate (I copied):

All grades are ABRSM  (and up to a point subjective):

Preludes Op. 28.

Grade 4/5:
no. 4
no. 7
no. 20

Grade 6:
No. 6
No. 9

Grade 7:
No. 2
No. 13
No. 14
No. 15
No. 21

Grade 8:
No. 1
No. 3
No. 17

Grade 8+
No. 8
No. 10
No. 11
No. 22
No. 23

Very advanced:
No. 5
No. 12
No. 16 (Arguably the most difficult)
No. 18
No. 19
No. 24

I see only one error in this: 17 and 11 must be INTERCHANGED; undoubtedly, the latter is much easier (and much shorter) than the former.  In 17, there are lots of cases in which fingers tops over each other AND there are many shifting in chords; 11 is just simple and as easy as 3 and 1.

[bernhard]

Just to add, here's another rating provided by a guy named Alan Chan (from his website https://www.geocities.com/alanchan1048576/mus/music.html)

<very easy> 7, 20, 4, 6, 2, 15, 21, 11, 9, 17, 13, 10, 23, 3, 14, 1, 18, 5, 12, 19, 22, 24, 8, 16 <very hard>

I think though that the one Bernhard gave above is more accurate.  I see only one error - #17  and #11 must be interchanged; undoubtedly, the latter is much easier (and much longer) than the former.  In #17, there are lots of cases in which fingers tops over each other; also, there are many shifting in chords.  #11 is just as easy as #3 and #1.

(BTW, what does ABRSM mean?)

Thanks for the alternative list.

ABRSM – Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music.

The ABRSM expects a student to go through one grade a year (and they suggest that one should expect 2 years for the first grade). This means that someone who has been studying the piano for 1 – 2years should be able to tackle repertory classified as grade 1, someone who has been studying for 2 – 3 years should be able to tackle repertory of grade 2, and so on.

So a grade 8 piece means a level of difficulty that would require 8- 9 years of piano study to tackle.

I very much disagree with these views. I see no reason for anyone with a minimum of seriousness and 1 hour correct practice per day not to be playing grade 8 pieces after 2 – 3 years.

However one must be realistic. Children with little interest in piano playing/practice having one 30-minute lesson per week with interruption every half term/holiday, may well take that long (and most likely will never make it).

So as is the case with all this grading stuff, it always depends.

As for my list. First, the preludes are not ordered progressively, but in grades. This means that I have considered the preludes of grade 4/5 (no. 4, 7 and 20) to be of the same level of difficulty – albeit the difficulties will be vastly different in nature. Also my list may not be directly comparable to Alan Chan’s (e.g. although we both agree that prelude16 is the most difficult, his ordering reflects this fact, while mine does not).

Second, I do not attach any great importance to it. It is all subjective. In fact I find of the utmost interest when someone posts an alternative list like the one you posted. They always tell more about the person compiling the list and what they find personally difficult, then the pieces themselves. Really , there is no right or wrong, just different alternatives.

Third. As far as I am concerned the main usefulness of such lists applies mostly in the case of someone who wants to master all the preludes. Following an order of ascending difficulty is always helpful, since one prelude prepares for the next (up to a point). This of course applies only to beginners. A fully accomplished pianist can tackle them in any order they please, and if so, following Chopin’s own ordering may be best.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[nanabush]

K I'm not a 'piano master', and I find number 5 very difficult to get used to, so I skipped it and went to others I could play... I don't feel I have to play them in order.... I'm not going to be ready to play number 16 before number 20....

[Toivot]

I learn op. 28 # 4
Very beautiful and quite easy 

[jhon]

K I'm not a 'piano master', and I find number 5 very difficult to get used to, so I skipped it and went to others I could play... I don't feel I have to play them in order.... I'm not going to be ready to play number 16 before number 20....

Yes, there's nothing wrong in skipping as long as when you would perform it as a whole set, follow the chronology - by that time you should have learned all. 

I agree with you about #5 - it's killing me!  In fact, #24 easier for me than #5 - of course, this only applies to me. 

[nanabush]

I can't play five, I just don't have enuf dedication to learn the different patterns, well it's only a page but meh, 24 there's one massive run of thirds I cannot play if my life depended on it...The more difficult ones I'd rather study with my teacher, but if I end up playing the entire set, I will play 1-24 not in different order.  Do you think if I played 7 of the preludes at a mini-recital that would be good?  I'm not close to having 24, like not EVEN CLOSE, but I want to play the ones I know at a recital coming this summer, a private one not some huge concert...

[arpeggiosnake]

Consider yourself a real virtuoso if you can play num 8,16,19 and 24.

[C-A]

Consider yourself a real virtuoso if you can play num 8,16,19 and 24.

Wow! Really?!!!
The preludes I've played are:
#3*, 4*, 5, 7*, 8, 10*, 12, 15*, 16, 19, 22 and 24
12 down, 12 more go...

*Sightreaded

[mlsmithz]

I'm walking proof of the fact that there's a bit of a gap - a gulf in some cases - between being able to sight-read a piece and being able to play it.  I can sight-read Alkan's 'Quasi-faust', for example, but the fugal section is a garbled mess every time I play it. (As I don't study piano formally, this is unlikely to change in the near future.)

The usual adage applies to the preludes, though - which ones are difficult depends on what you can and cannot do well. (Taking the etudes as an example, I have large hands, so Op.10 No.1, No.9, No.11, and Op.25 No.4 aren't as difficult for me as they are for some, but I can't play extended passages of double thirds or double sixths to save my life, ruining Op.25 No.6 and No.8 for me.) Though the list of most difficult is usually topped by the F-sharp minor, B-flat minor, E-flat major, and D minor preludes (the aforementioned 8, 16, 19, 24), if you have the right technique they can actually be easier for you than some of the others.  If you struggle with repeated notes, for example, the G-sharp minor will be hell on 88 keys for you, while the sheer unpredictability of the D major packs a lot of trouble into such a short piece.  For whatever the Associated Board rankings are worth, I've seen the F-sharp major and A-flat major preludes turn up on the Grade 8 syllabus in various years, though this may have something to do with their length (in most performances they are exceeded only by the D-flat major prelude, which is not a particularly challenging piece next to some of the others).

There's no question that the E minor, A major, and C minor preludes are the easiest technically (making them not sound insipid is not so easy), and the B minor and E major preludes are, indeed, not much more difficult, so you could certainly handle them easily given what you already know.  The E-flat minor and B-flat major preludes might be a good next step, along with either the F-sharp major or D-flat major preludes (in fact, you may want to try one of those first so you have something really substantial under your belt).  Definitely leave the F-sharp minor, B-flat minor, E-flat major, and D minor preludes until near the end.

[C-A]

Your hands are large and you can't play extended double-note passages of thirds and sixths?
How come my hands are large; having a span of 10 keys on the right and 11 keys on the left, I can play the 25/6 thirds etude without any problem?

I can play the aformentioned preludes (8, 16, 19, 24) without much fuss.
The easiest of the 4 for me is the 16th one, and I usually play it at a metronome tempo of around 220, sometimes reaching 280 at the middle part.
The hardest is the 24th- one wrong calculation in turning your fingers on those up and down scales can lead to disaster, but the part where there is a downward chromatic thirds scale is not much of a problem.

[mlsmithz]

I'm not sure there's a correlation between having large hands and the ability to sustain runs and/or trills of double thirds or sixths, is there?  Either way, I can't play Op.25 No.6 unless I slow it RIGHT down (and even then it sounds uneven), and while I fare better with Op.25 No.8 (partly because sixths give me less trouble than thirds and partly because it is in triplets and not quadruplets) it still sounds very ragged.  I can't get two pairs of fingers to follow the motion needed for the trills at the beginning, and the runs are always hit and miss. (If there are exercises that help this, I never learned them since I never studied Op.25 No.6 formally.  Op.25 No.2, No.3, No.10 (abortively), and No.12, yes; Op.25 No.6 and the rest, no.  I was and am more partial to Op.10 so I tended to choose more from that book and can sight-read most of them on a good day.)

Anyway, the preludes: sounds as though you shouldn't have much trouble with any of them if you can get through 5, 8, 12, 16, 19, and 24.  Good luck mastering the whole set! (Which I think is really the best way to perform them unless you play a sequence of four or six - effective examples might be 7-12, 13-16, 19-24, or 21-24.)

[jhon]

I can play the aformentioned preludes (8, 16, 19, 24) without much fuss.
The easiest of the 4 for me is the 16th one, and I usually play it at a metronome tempo of around 220, sometimes reaching 280 at the middle part.
The hardest is the 24th- one wrong calculation in turning your fingers on those up and down scales can lead to disaster, but the part where there is a downward chromatic thirds scale is not much of a problem.

This is exactly the opposite of me.  The easiest, in my case, of the four (8, 16, 19, 24) is 24.  The only "killer" passage I consider in it is the descending thirds; other than that is merely a large LH reach and good RH scales (which I think I'm good at).  Anyways, maybe this is just how difficulty could be RELATIVE and SUBJECTIVE among pianists.  BTW, #19 is the hardest for me of the four.