Piano music
The hardest piano pieces ever written
Some pieces are hard because they're fast, some because the hands have to leap, stretch or keep going for an hour. These are the ones pianists name again and again, what makes each so hard, and what to listen for. Then test your own speed.
How hard is hard?
There's no official ranking, and pianists argue about it endlessly, because difficulty comes in kinds:
- Speed: many notes a second, every one even.
- Leaps: landing on a far-off key, without looking, again and again.
- Stretch: chords wider than an octave, which favour big hands.
- Stamina: keeping it up for half an hour, or four.
- Control: playing very fast and very quietly at the same time.
- Memory: holding thousands of notes in your head.
The pieces
In no strict order. All of them are well beyond the pieces on this site; that's rather the point.
Islamey (Oriental Fantasy)
Mily Balakirev · 1869
Built on dance tunes Balakirev heard in the Caucasus, it hammers repeated notes and jumps across the keyboard at full speed for eight relentless minutes. For decades it was the yardstick: the piece a pianist played to prove they could play anything.
Listen for the same note struck again and again, faster than seems possible, and a slow, lyrical middle that's the only rest you get.
Scarbo, from Gaspard de la nuit
Maurice Ravel · 1908
Ravel told a friend he wanted to write something harder than Islamey, and Scarbo is the result: a goblin darting about a bedroom at night. Rapid repeated notes, wide arpeggios and sudden changes from a whisper to a roar, all with Ravel's insistence on precision.
Listen for the flickering repeated notes at the start, and how quietly much of it has to be played while moving that fast.
La Campanella
Franz Liszt · 1851
The third of Liszt's Paganini Études, based on the finale of Paganini's second violin concerto. The right hand leaps again and again from the middle of the keyboard to a tiny high “bell” note, more than an octave away, and has to land on it lightly every time.
Listen for the high bell note ringing above everything, and the right hand jumping to it without a single miss.
Transcendental Étude No. 5, Feux follets
Franz Liszt · 1852
“Will-o'-the-wisps”: flickering lights over a marsh. The right hand plays fast, light double notes, two at once, with awkward fingerings, and it has to sound like air. Many pianists name it the hardest of Liszt's twelve Transcendental Études.
Listen for how light it is. If you can hear effort, it isn't working yet.
Étude in A minor, Op. 10 No. 2
Frédéric Chopin · 1833
A chromatic scale running up and down for the whole étude, played by the weakest fingers of the right hand (3, 4 and 5) while the thumb and index finger play soft chords underneath. It's short, and it hurts.
Listen for the evenness of the running line, which is made of fingers that don't want to be even.
Étude in G♯ minor, Op. 25 No. 6
Frédéric Chopin · 1837
Chopin's study in thirds: two notes at once in the right hand, sliding through fast chromatic thirds and trills. Smooth thirds are one of the hardest things on the piano, and here they never stop.
Listen for the trill in thirds right at the start, which tells you at once whether the pianist can do it.
Hammerklavier Sonata, Op. 106
Ludwig van Beethoven · 1818
About 45 minutes long, it ends in a huge, knotty fugue. Beethoven marked the first movement half note = 138, so fast that most pianists play it slower and argue about whether he meant it.
Listen for the leap in the opening bars, and the fugue in the last movement, where several voices race against each other at once.
Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 35
Johannes Brahms · 1863
Brahms subtitled them “Studies for the piano”: two books of variations on the same Paganini caprice Liszt and Rachmaninoff also used, each attacking a different technical problem, from wide stretches to rhythms of two against three.
Listen for how each variation sets the hands a new problem, often a different one in each hand.
Piano Concerto No. 3
Sergei Rachmaninoff · 1909
“Rach 3”, made famous outside concert halls by the film Shine. Thick chords that need very large hands (Rachmaninoff's own could reportedly span a 13th), a huge first-movement cadenza, and around 40 minutes in which the piano almost never stops.
Listen for the plain, quiet tune at the very start, and how far the piano travels from it.
Three Movements from Petrushka
Igor Stravinsky · 1921
Stravinsky turned his ballet into a piano piece for Arthur Rubinstein, and kept the orchestra in it: both hands leap across the whole keyboard at once, often in different keys.
Listen for how much of an orchestra one pianist is playing.
Concerto for Solo Piano, from Op. 39
Charles-Valentin Alkan · 1857
A concerto with no orchestra: the pianist plays both parts. Its first movement alone lasts close to half an hour of dense, fast writing.
Listen for the moments where the piano is clearly the orchestra, and then the soloist, in the same bar.
Studies on Chopin's Études
Leopold Godowsky · 1894–1914
Godowsky rewrote Chopin's already-difficult études, 53 times: some for the left hand alone, one (Badinage) playing two Chopin études at the same time.
Listen for the left-hand-alone studies, which sound like two hands.
Opus clavicembalisticum
Kaikhosru Sorabji · 1930
About four hours long, and so dense that for decades Sorabji discouraged anyone from playing his music in public. It's on every list for sheer length as much as difficulty.
Listen for the scale of it: few pianists have ever played it complete.
Études
György Ligeti · 1985–2001
Modern studies built on rhythms that overlap and drift apart, sometimes a different pulse in each hand. “L'escalier du diable” (The Devil's Staircase) climbs and climbs and never seems to reach the top.
Listen for the hands moving in different rhythms that never quite line up.
How fast can you play? The trill test
A trill is two notes alternating as fast as you can: the most basic test of finger speed and evenness. Alternate the two keys for ten seconds (tap the pads, or press F and J), as fast and as evenly as you can.
Evenness matters as much as speed: a fast trill with lumpy timing sounds worse than a slower, even one. On a real piano, try it with fingers 2 and 3, then 3 and 4, which is much harder.
The ladder: from your first piece to the summit
Every pianist who plays Islamey started with something like Hot Cross Buns. Here's a way up, with every step playable on this site:
Between Advanced and the summit is a long road: Bach's preludes and fugues, the Chopin études, Beethoven's sonatas. A teacher, and Ivory, help you take it a step at a time.
Climbing the ladder? Ivory listens to you play and tells you what's off: a note that's missing, a hand that lands late, a run that isn't even. Then it shows you how it should go.
Questions people ask
What is the hardest piano piece ever written?
There's no single answer, because pieces are hard in different ways. The ones pianists name most are Balakirev's Islamey, Ravel's Scarbo, Liszt's La Campanella and Feux follets, Rachmaninoff's Third Concerto, and, for sheer length, Sorabji's four-hour Opus clavicembalisticum.
Is La Campanella the hardest piano piece?
It's one of the most famous hard pieces, mainly for its right-hand leaps to a high bell note at speed, but most pianists would put Islamey, Scarbo or several of Liszt's Transcendental Études at least as high.
What makes a piano piece hard?
Speed (many notes a second, evenly), leaps (landing far-off notes accurately), stretch (chords wider than an octave), stamina (keeping it up for many minutes), control (playing fast and quietly) and memory. The hardest pieces ask for several at once.
What is the hardest Chopin piece?
Among the études, Op. 10 No. 2 (a chromatic scale for the weakest fingers) and Op. 25 No. 6 (fast thirds) are the ones pianists usually name. The Ballade No. 4 and the Sonata No. 3's finale are often named among his longer works.
How fast do concert pianists play?
In fast runs and trills, often well over ten notes a second in one hand, and evenly. Try the trill test on this page to see where you are.
What is a hard piano piece that sounds easy?
Clair de Lune and Gymnopédie No. 1 sound simple, but their difficulty is in control: soft, even, with the pedal just right. The Prelude in C is easy to play and hard to play beautifully.