15 Hardest Piano Pieces
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- čas přidán 11. 09. 2024
- Here is my list of the 15 hardest piano pieces. Obviously, this list is going to be subjective, as determining the actual hardest piece would quite literally be impossible. I excluded joke pieces, impossible pieces, and pieces that are not for solo piano from the video (with the exception of the Finnissy piano concertos, as they are mainly solo, with a few moments of orchestra like Concerto No. 2)
You can treat this video with or without any order as difficulty becomes irrelevant at standards like these pieces shown; even the honorable mentions should be treated that way. Yes, the term "hardest" means it is the hardest out of all of the time periods, with the contemporary period obviously shown to be the most complex of them all. If you want a video showing the hardest pieces up to a certain time (as beyond 1920 pieces just become horrendously difficult to interpret and play as well as rank) feel free to reach out!
This is not meant to be a comprehensive list, just some pieces that I found to be one of the hardest pieces in the piano repertoire!
My discord server: / discord
Here is my list (in case you are too lazy to watch the actual recordings lol):
15. Brian Ferneyhough Opus-Contra-Naturam
14. Finnissy: Folklore
13. Beat Furrer: Phasma
12. Sorabji: Opus Clavicembalisticum
11. Finnissy: Verdi Transcriptions
10. Xenakis: Mists
9. Downie: Piano Pieces No. 2
8. Clarence Barlow: Coglu Otobus ietismesi
7. Barrett: Tract
6. Fredric Rzewski The Road
5. Bussotti: Pour Clavier
4. Sorabji: Symphonic Variations for Solo Piano
3. Hoban: When the Panting STARTS
2. Finnissy: History of Photography of Sound
Honorable mentions: Xenakis: Evryali, Herma Finnissy: Piano Concertos, English Country Tunes Messiaen: Vingt Regard sur l'enfant Jesus, Ferneyhough: Lemma Icon Epigram, Sorabji: Sequentia Cyclica Super "Dies Irae" ex Missa pro Defunctis, Stockhausen Klaiverstucke VI
1. Sorabji Opus Archimagicum
I DO NOT OWN ANY OF THE RECORDINGS USED:
Recordings:
• Kaikhosru Sorabji - "Q...
• Brian Ferneyhough - Le...
• Olivier Messiaen - Vin...
• Michael Finnissy - Eng...
• Michael Finnissy - Pia...
• Iannis Xenakis: Herma ...
• Xenakis evryali
• Kaikhosru Sorabji - "C...
• Wieland Hoban - when t...
• Beat Furrer - Phasma
• K.S Sorabji - Symphoni...
• Sylvano Bussotti - Pou...
• Richard Barrett - Trac...
• Clarence Barlow - Çoǧl...
• Gordon Downie - Piano ...
• Frederic Rzewski: The ...
• Xenakis - Mists
• Michael Finnissy - Ver...
• Kaikhosru Sorabji - "C...
• K.Stockhausen - Klavie...
• Brian Ferneyhough - Op...
![UCF Professor Richard Quinn accuses class of cheating [Original]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/rbzJTTDO9f4/mqdefault.jpg)
I excluded non-solo piano works (with the exception of the Finnissy Piano Concertos) and joke/impossible pieces like Stump Death Waltz and Hamelin Circus Galop.
Edit: I just changed the title to “15 hardest piano pieces” instead of “TOP 15 hardest piano pieces.” I just want people to take this video as a list of incredibly difficult works. There is no specific order whatsoever.
Wait. There actually EXIST impossible works?!
@@goldiefoggythere are tons
these what i hear is that it is noisy
@@imafinnishguy I had a stroke reading this
They're easy to write. Many of these pieces are physically impossible to play with two human-sized hands, and performers have written about the strategic approaches to such situations. For example, Peter Hill has written about learning Evryali (by Xenakis, one of the pieces in this video) and how he chose which notes to play.
Most of the pieces here are essentially unplaysble as written. The Messiaen is a notable exception - accurate performances are expected for that piece.
This music should be played in those flashy international piano competitions.
Bro I could legitimately kinda hear a melody in the tenor in the Finnissy Verdi Transcriptions
Yes! That’s why I chose this section lol, it’s actually somewhat recognizable and tonal in some areas.
Shouldn't an audience's ability to percieve mistakes count toward how difficult a piece is considered to be? If I had to play most of these on stage, I would feel quite at ease knowing that, even amongst a professional audience, no one will know if I'm playing it correctly. On the other hand, if I had to play Mozart, I'd be absolutely terrified because even slight inaccuracies are immediately apparent to everyone.
finally a list with the proper hard ones, i half expected this to have rachmaninoff as the hardest piece like all the others loll
the pieces shown in this video can be put in 2 catagories:
1: impposible to read
2: impossible to play (physically)
Hardest to play or hardest to listen to?
both...
You know you're in hell when Sorabji is comparably listenable.
Alternative title:15 hard ways to make noise on the piano
(I only mean most of them,few of them are fine lol)
(And i don't mean to declare war on ppl who like these kinds of stuff, it's just my opinion)
Sorabji is really the only one of these that I like.
I honestly wanted to hear something that's actually music from this video
it's not because it sounds bad, then it's not music
If It sounds bad, it's still music
Listen to rhe 1st movement of the Messiaen Piece, "Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant Jesus". It's calm and beautiful in the traditional sense, but still definitely 20th-century.
My reply was to @squadritofederico6845.
In that case, listen to Balakirev's Islamey. It is proper music, but very challenging and brilliant. (If you play the piano, it is worth getting hold of the sheet music too.)
oh for gods sake WHY did you use Ogdon's recording for the OC. there are so many recordings that are so much better
great video though, probably one of the most accurate "hardest pieces" videos
Alastair Hinton copyright strike speedrun sorj% no gulistans
Also interesting that Tract is so low, is it because of the length?
Now I know that when I stomped on the piano as a kid I was actually making contemporary music
Hahahaha
Well, this is quite the interesting video, each piece requires an acquired taste of music. Me personally - I love this stuff, but ask a lot of other people and they may not feel the same way about it, that's what's so interesting about contemporary music.
I prefer to stop at Scriabin.
I love Liszt, Stravinsky and others, but when the composer finds the complexity greater than the music, he already loses my audience
@@pianista-mediocrei dont think that was the case for scriabin. i respect tho
@@pianista-mediocre I'd say Stravinsky is more complex than Scriabin - don't get me wrong Scriabin's music is sophisticated enough to the average listener, but Stravinsky revolutionized the use of atonality, uses of chord clustering and pushed the limits of music - leaving a foundation for contemporary and the composers of the New Complexity era.
@@imonaplain I'm saying that I stop at everything more or less after Scriabin. Stravinsky and Liszt at the end of their lives were just other examples
Stravinsky is still "listenable". Sorabji is another one that has "listenable" pieces
@@pianista-mediocre Ah fair enough, I thought you were saying that Scriabin is less-listenable than Stravinsky, whoops.
Seriously, are those THAT hard?
Like, it's just some dude playing random notes on the piano for 4 hours. I understand that it requires stamina and stuff, but come on, if you play a wrong note NO ONE will notice.
true lol
If you know the piece well you will notice
@@dzordzszs I understand that the pieces are ISANELY difficult to learn pedagogically, but are they THAT hard?
Of course, the lengths of these pieces are insane, but are they that difficult technically?
but thats why its insanly hard BECAUSE you want to play correctly
@@BM28123 Yes, something like a jump/leap in romantic music would be an octave to a standard chord (just as an example), whereas in these types of pieces, the same jump could be between different cluster chords or 6+ note chords, which pose nonstandard technical demands that require extreme precision. You could apply a similar principle to nearly all techniques, and you said yourself that learning the pieces pedagogically is insanely difficult. Altogether, the pieces often surpass the pure physicality of pre-modern virtuoso composers such as Liszt and Alkan, while containing a greater variety of (un)pianistic techniques taken to their extreme, complex rhythms, and rapid dynamic changes.
this is random :
im surprised things went in more of an atonal route for music and not omnitonal route.
I don’t really like the modern classical pieces but the last one is kinda cool to be fair
You forgot Fantaisie Impromptu and Moonlight Sonata mvt 3 😂
At least fantasie impromptu and Beethoven's moonlight sonata contain music,.these pieces do not.
@@alvodin6197dont project your musical primitivity on others
Ehh... Moonlight sonata isn't really that hard, just broken up chords.
I would say that some of the hardest pieces are: Rach 3, Feux follets, Hammerklavier Sonata, Gaspard de la Nuit, you get it.
bro It's called sarcasm@@Aminuteorso...
@@spoonkitchenware Did I miss the joke? My bad 😅
I’m hearing harmony in parts of the Verdi transcription. Am I going insane?
No
Yes, the LH is actually quite beautiful imo
I like how none of them are from Liszt
Liszt was one of the most difficult composers of Romanticism/Early Impressionism, but from the 20th century onwards, he became "easy" compared to Xenakis, Sorabji and others.
Liszt certainly was hard but these 20th century/new complexity composers are wild…
liszt is easy compared to these guys, these guys inhaled drugs for a snack
I feel like composer's like lizst are the height of music that's sounds good and is also really fucking hard. Like all the music in this video sounds like utter doo doo
The thing is they're not necessarily more difficult in a pure "fingery" perspective but they're harder conceptually because they're not tonal, and this is very difficult for memory and therefore for execution.
I swear that one could play any part of any piece after any part of any other piece and most people (including me) would not even notice. 😂
Not _any_ of these, but it's true with some of them.
Although ... if you're familiar with these composers, you can tell most of them apart. I know I probably can - the ones with identifiable styles.
That's why I said most people and not all. and true some modern pieces have more character than others and something that makes them coherent (at least to my ears) and hence more recognizable.@@ejb7969
You say that and yet while scrolling through the comments and not looking at the video at all, not only did I notice when every piece changed, but I recognized the exact piece currently playing for no less than six of the entries, and I'm not particularly well versed in the post-1950s piano literature. I don't disagree that some of them bleed together but then, so do Haydn piano sonatas. As with anything, recognition comes from exposure and familiarity and this music isn't any more impossible to identify than anything else. Frankly, the difference between Sorabji and Xenakis is more vast than anything you'd see in the common practice era.
Well congratulations pal. I wish i could do that. but how many like you are out here? Not much, I guess. for me, a guy with very moderate ears but huge passion for music of all sorts and genres, sometimes a piece will speak to me and sometimes not, as simple as that. for these very Avant grade pieces usually, I need a certain mood or something to make it unified as the melodies in these don't do much. That is just a simple guy's opinion.
all my best@@prepcoin_nl4362
if you've no experience, then yes.
Ah its the melodies my grandmother would sing to me to help me sleep. Good times.
7:09 why is the word "starts" in allcaps
Honestly most of these compositions sound so as if their composer had a temper tantrum and the first thing he saw in his room was a piano
PLEASE READ! If you are preparing the adjustments for future vids.
Suggestions:
1. Opus Contra Naturam is much harder than many of Finnissy's pieces except , , and , Ferneyhough's Opus Contra Naturam has intensely high amount of polyrhythms and pianist should simultaneously read the text out loud while playing the piano. It is absolutely another level compared to Phasma and Folklore. Folklore is not the hardest piece by Finnissy since it contains very easy sections that are approachable to amateur performers. Despite Phasma requiring high stamina, it is a NOTHING compared from Opus Contra Naturam.
2. Xenakis's Mist is a very hard piece, very difficult, and demanding to approach. However, it is much easier than Lemma Icon Epigram or Opus Contra Naturam.
3, Tract, is literally the hardest piece composed for piano (if not considering Sorabji's pieces). Even Ian Pace mentioned it was the hardest piece he had ever played. It should be placed at either TOP 2 (Tract is easier than when the panting STARTS). Harder than Pour Clavier (there is a performance note that helps the performer to intepret the notation of the score) and Finnissy's History of Photography in Sound
4. Barlow's Cogluotobusisletmesi is better when placed behind Sorabji's Opus Clavicembalisticum.
5. Finnissy's History of Photography and Rzewski's The Road needs an extreme amount of stamina if performing the whole thing. There are loads of easy sections for pianist and tedious sections. The movements from the pieces could be separately performed, unlike Tract (it is not allowed to perform the individual movement separately). Those pieces are very overrated, I suppose.
6. You should get permission using Sorabji's score, or your channel will get struck by Alistair Hinton. Please..please..please... dont use sorabji's score in the video.. trust me...
I agree with all of this, and my first thought when I saw this video in my feed was "oh boy time for Mr Hinton to get this one".
Hi! Just read your suggestions and I agree with most of them. I removed the word “top” from the title as I want people to treat this vid no more as a list of difficult pieces. As for the Sorabji scores, well…we are just going to have to see.
@@acactus2190 I saw your other videos consisting of Sorabji related materials. Watch out for that...
The Sorabji excerpts he put in here are all available on youtube. And tract is harder than WTPS
@HHHtheguy according to Ian Pace, wtpS was a harder challenge compared with Tract. It is subjective
Notice some of the best pieces on a musical level actually have readable scores.
When Ogdon played Sorabji, it was sound like New Complexity
finnissy's verdi transcriptions is sooo good (and actually quite tonal if you listen closely)
You forgot The One And Only "Hammerklavier"
finnissy honestly just annoys me
Это какое-то дерьмо, а не музыка. Просто случайные ноты
I don't know if these are the 15 hardest on the fingers, but they are the 15 hardest on the ears.
My brain hurts...from looking at the scores AND from listening.
Rush E:
*Rush E has left the chat*
Yes it has immediately left from the face of the chat just from this video's existence.
... it literally isn't possible, period.
A transcription of Cecil Taylor's "free improvisations" would be just as difficult, if not more so, than most of these pieces.
I heard the improvisations, and would probably place it at around the Verdi transcriptions at max. Difficulty becomes irrelevant at this point, but considering most of these pieces are 5+ hours in length and sometimes there isn’t even a recording for them, I don’t think the improvisations are the most difficult
@@acactus2190 yes, in general i think it's just better to improvise random stuff over a certain idea. Almost infinitely easier too than needing to commit to memory billions of random notes.
@@marcorval You could just improvise in the style of these pieces than actually learning them. No reason to learn them in my opinion
Definitely not.
@@markusberzborn6346 the point is pounding away at the keyboard randomly and then having some midi transcriber write it down would make it virtually impossible to re-learn accurately. And I think the sound such an undertaking would produce wouldn't be that different from what we hear in these pieces.
This sounds like me mashing random keys on a piano really fast plus few palm/fist smashes here and there
it is definately more complex than romantic classical pieces. but just because you dont understand this kind of music doesnt mean you have to call it random tones.
@@stoppelhopser1848 I would love to hear your breakdown.
@@Aminuteorso...these pieces are nearly always made just for that, music theory pushed to its limit. They are basically pieces made to be broken down to find meaning
My 3 year old cousin can play everything from here…
I respect the composers and all, and there is music here, but it's just impossible to pick these pieces apart and hear any of it with these buffoons repeatedly slamming their forearms on the piano.
I really dislike the slams but Finnissy so far makes the best use of them in my opinion. Sorabji in my opinion is one of my favorite
And I thought Rach 3 was hard…😂
It's probably harder tbh
@@someoneelse361 I know, but this sheet music sends chills down my spine lol
Modern art ❌ modern music ✅
Except Sorabji and Messiaen, most of them just make random notes, not really interesting (Finnissy is the worst of all)
Well okay then...
Rzewski The Road? What? It looks very simple through 9 hours compare to any little harder piece and length doesnt make it more hard
barlow was interesting with the wild tuning.
I don't get it. Why Opus Clavicembalisticum (4,5 hours piece) easier then verdi transcription (1,5 hours piece)? Please can explain
I assume this is ranked by technical difficulty, not how physically demanding it is.
To be honest, no offense but, in my opinion, this list is totally unaccurate. Stockhausen is definitelly hard, but for sure it should not appear on such lists. Besides, there are even MUCH harder pieces he composed, such as extremely demanding Klavierstück 11 or 12.
The Rzewski looks much easier than say Barret Tract.
This list is in no order, also, the road is over 9 hours long and contains many horrendously stamina-reducing passages but at this point difficultly becomes kind of irrelevant.
@@acactus2190 ...oh. I did not realize it was over 9 hours. wtf
so beutiful melodies
Nonsense
Im playing piano in my freetime and yes im good at it:
oh, come on. i've played yr nr.11 (finnissy) and i'm not even a pianist!
Is Phasma even physically difficult?
I feel like it's only hard because you don't know what you're reading.
It's so funny to me, that people who clearly don't know what they're talking about come here, apparently turn off their brains and start stating their uninformed, *subjective* opinion as fact. Not a sliver of curiosity is there to push them to listen to any of these in their full context (not even the Sorabji or the Messiaen, which are far more accessible than the others here), and it's a real shame.
#5 to #1 are so WTF-y! 😮
Sorabji is interesting too.
His orchestral works are insane, fortunately we have some virtual performances of them.
A top 15 hardest piano pieces could easily just be 15 mozart piano concertos
Especially if you play them all at once.
What
@@loganm2924 Mozart is the most difficult composer to play well
@@someoneelse361 the hardest pieces are those which maximise all facets of difficulty, not just musicality. Saying Mozart is the hardest composer/has the hardest pieces when relatively little technique is required is shortsighted. There are pieces with just as much musical requirements and very difficult technical and analytical difficulties.
@loganm2924 To play Mozart is not. To play well. Mozart is by far the most difficult. It's so so hard to get everything right. With Liszt you can get away with a few things. Mozart. No. Every note is so exposed in a mozart piece. Everything has to be precisely perfect
Lol i came here and, "17 hours ago"
I like Xenakis (interesting sound worlds) and Finnissy (transitions from soft melodies to utter madness and then back again!). Sorabji - I can sort of listen to it but get bored after 10 mins (not good when the piece is 4.5 hours long). Ferneyhough I just think is pretentious rubbish (ridiculous rhythms that serve no useful purpose that I can see). Stockhausen is a bit hit and miss. Messaien a complete genius. Others I don't know. As for which is most difficult - hard to say. They all look horrendously difficult.
Sorabji is also relatively good, while at the same time also being one of the most difficult
No Bacn? Absolutely deplorable list.
@@KrisSucksAtLife There are no typos in this comment.
just a question, are these all actual recordings from a human? has any pianist ever actually played these pieces?
I ask because im not familiar with contemporary piano repertoire
Yes, they are all human lol
@@acactus2190 Lmao why would people want to learn this stuff 💀
Yes, except Xenakis pieces that are actually MIDIs
@@Rickkeys377A few reasons.
Commission for money, someone might’ve payed them.
Test of skill.
Xenakis: Herma?????
It’s in the honorable mentions lol
@@acactus2190 a
Where's la Campanella
😂
This has to be a joke...
Finnisy might be the worst composer I’ve ever heard.
Thing is this isn’t real music; this doesn’t take as much skill and effort to compose, and shouldn’t be respected tbh
This isn't a real comment; this doesn't take as much skill and effort to write, and shouldn't be respected tbh
Maybe you should look into how they were composed before saying this sort of thing. For example, Xenakis composed using math. He was an Architect. He’s considered to be a revolutionary.
@@falkeprophet maybe he should have composed using his ears 🥴
@@marsco2442 He did. His Six Chansons are very tonal, but he decided to do something different, and the rest of his compositions were born. They aren’t supposed to sound “pretty,” so judging them on that basis is unfair and useless.
@@falkeprophetWell for what were they designed to be? As far as I know, music is to be listened to. And probably without damaging the ear drums.
It's funny how they have to try so hard to make something so awful 😐
Atonal music is the most coördinated music there is, it is done with precision.
Piano pieces - but not piano music (except Messiaen)
I don’t listen to much of this type of music, but Finnissy is always interesting (and sometimes very pleasurable) to listen to.
What can you possibly find pleasurable about this?
@@ashrafthegoat nice sounds
@@ashrafthegoatI first thought the same way. The trick is to drop all your memories of music you've ever heard and just listen to it like it is.
@@davisatdavis1Drop everything and declare art! It's similar to the Fat Corner by Joseph Beuys. Well, the museum chair woman removed it. She saw just filth. No respect those simple people.
@@rainerm.8168 Even though I usually hate such atonal music, it still has a certain vibe to it. You notice patterns amidst the utter chaos and it can sound cool at times (but most of the time it still sounds like a cat walking on a piano at night).
The history of Photography of sound. I doubt it. What a pretentious title.
His titles all were jokes basically, he was called pretentious a lot so he just embraced it in a humorous way
Of course...his music just exudes a sense of humor.@@puffballbk2186
This should have mr incredible