Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Beethoven Sonatas ranked by difficulty

wow, this thread is old! 0.0
hmmm, i havnt played too much of these sonatas...but i would put 90 below 32/2 ...

Op.90 is at the lower end of the difficulty scale - actually one of the easier ones.

I would put Op.2 No.3 above Op.7

Op.109 is considerably less hard than you list it.

Op.78 is possibly a bit harder due to the second movement.

I've only played Pastorale, and dabbled in Moonlight. I'd think Pathetique is harder then Pastorale. The 3rd movement of Moonlight sounds harder than Pastorale too.

Not to put Pastorale down - it's one of my favorites, which is why I learned it first.

I was curious about why so many found Op 7 so difficult so it is now on my music desk and I'll report back if I find it more difficult than Op 2 #3 or for that matter Op 31 #3 which I am currently working on. I'm amzed that many find this last one so difficult. To me there are far more difficult ones like Op 81a which I also have played.

I disagree with parts of this list.

Op. 54 is about the same difficulty as its better-known brethren Op. 53 and Op. 57: the first movement takes a mature musician to make musical sense of the material; and the second movement is absolutely treacherous.

Op. 31 No. 3, Op. 78 and Op. 22 should be well up into the 20s. The slurs second movement of Op. 78 will give your hands quite a beating.

Yeah.

This is one instance where I'd agree with the naysayers about re-upping old threads. Better to start a new one on the subject, if someone wants to.

Anyway, welcome, Marq. And good job finding this thread. But it would probably be better either to do a new thread, or to find a much more recent one on a similar subject....

I don't mind that it's old. I've referenced this page a few times, I think it's still useful. I think it makes sense to keep it going--better to have one thread on the subject rather than several.

I just thought it was funny that another poster already claimed it was 'old' nearly 8 years ago!

Seeing Phlebas' name though is a shock. I miss him.

Well, obviously Hammerklavier is the most difficult sonata and his sonata 20 is the easiest but of course it depends on your strong and weak points in playing. For me, the later sonata 26 - 32 are more difficult then his earlier ones.

Just wonder one might separate movement e.g. Moonlight mov1 and Pathetique mov2 etc. Trying to see whether one can do a few. I enjoyed his music more than anything else and just like to hear it sound under my fingers. As an old beginner, I think it is not possible to finish even 10%. But may be one can just get your feet wet without olympic swimmer.

Any easy movement if one has teacher and devote at least 1/2 hour per day for practice?

A truly great set of posts, this, as valuable as a rough guide for the unacquainted as it is thought-provoking for anyone for whom the 32 have been staple fare for decades - just what forums are for and all about IMO. Long may it continue growing! (allow it to and, who knows, it could become an acknowledged standard reference!)

There seems to be a quite high order of consensus here, regarding both Phlebus' own rating and those sonatas that posters would rate considerably higher or lower in the list. Op.101's rating interested me greatly. A few years back, I'd have rated it 31 - dauntingly difficult - but since finally getting round to memorizing it, around 5 years ago (after a long period spent working on musicianship and aural skills) it's been one of the sonatas I feel most comfortable playing, so (purely personally) I'd now rate it in the mid-range. A similar story for Les Adieux and Op.22.

Surprises for me are the high-difficulty ratings of Opp.7, 10/3 and 110 which have never troubled my fingers greatly, and on that basis of reckoning I'd rate Opp.53 and 31/2 (outer movements) lower (31/2 much lower), too. Tougher for them are Op.2/2, Op.10/2 (finale), Op.26 (2nd movt), Op.54 (1st movt), Op.57 (1st movt), Op.78 (which I find strangely awkward almost throughout).

But most surprising for me are the ratings (and lack of comment thereto) regarding Opp.31/1 and 27/1, both of which (after 40 years of practising them regularly) I would rate as extremely difficult. Op 31/1 calls for exceptional agility and suppleness, disciplined musicianship and tonal control throughout. The finale of 27/1, though straighforward enough played slowly, is an acknowledged killer at full tempo, even at professional level, on account of its relentless, ungainly semiquaver work - a real test of endurance for anyone whose execution falls short of the perfectly effortless. Anyone have any comments about these two?

Thx Marq to bring this topic up. I would like to share my grading list of the Beethoven Sonatas. I also put them in order from 1 to 32, but more importantly in 7 grades accompanied with famous technical/polyphonic studies which can improve your playing of the sonatas. Ranking 32 sonatas is ok, but ranking them in 7 categories is better. Ranking is always someones opinion.

Be sure that playing this 32 sonatas is a very long term task. No one should learn them in sequence on the piano. So learn many other pieces as well For the melodic studies play Chopin, Debussy and others. If you want to play the full Beethoven package deal play some Haydn Sonatas first. Remember that Beethoven was a student of Haydn.

Before entering Grade 1. Make sure you played sonatinas of Clementi, Kuhlau & Dussek. They are bundled in the famous album of W. Rauch.

Grade 1
Technical Studies: Czerny - School of Velocity Op.299 No.1-20
Polyphonic Studies: Bach Little Preludes: BWV 924-928, 930, 933-938, 939-943, 999

1 Op. 49#2
2 Op. 49#1

Grade 2
Technical Studies: Czerny - School of Velocity Op.299 No.21-40
Polyphonic Studies: Bach Little Preludes & Fugues: BWV 925, 928, 961, 953, 952

3 Op. 79

Grade 3
Technical Studies: Czerny - The Art of Finger Dexterity Op.740 No.1-24
Polyphonic Studies: Bach French Suites: No.6,2,3,4

4 Op. 14#1
5 Op. 14#2
6 Op. 10#1

Grade 4
Technical Studies: Czerny - The Art of Finger Dexterity Op.740 No.25-50
Polyphonic Studies:
Bach French Suites: No.5,1
Bach Well-Tempered Clavier:
book 1, No.5,2,6,16,10,21,11,13
book 2, No.6,1,7,9,12,15,16,24

7 Op. 2#1
8 Op. 10#2

Grade 5
Technical Studies:
Moszkowski Etudes Op.72
Czerny Toccata Op.92
Polyphonic Studies:
Bach English Suites
Bach Italian Concert
Bach Well-Tempered Clavier:
book 1, No.1,3,7,9,12,14,15,17,18,19,22,23
book 2, No.2,8,11,5,10

9 Op. 10#3
10 Op. 13
11 Op. 26
12 Op. 22
13 Op. 28
14 Op. 2#2
15 Op. 2#3
16 Op. 7
17 Op. 27#1
18 Op. 31#3
19 Op. 27#2
20 Op. 31#1
21 Op. 31#2

Grade 6
Technical Studies:
Schumann Paganini-Etudes Op. 3 & Op.10
Brahms Paganini-Etudes Op.35
Polyphonic Studies:
Bach Well-Tempered Clavier:
Book 1: No. 4, 8, 17
Book 2: No.14,18,20,23

22 Op.90
23 Op.78
24 Op.54
25 Op.81a
26 Op.53
27 Op.57


Grade 7
Technical Studies:
Liszt Paganini-Etudes
Liszt Transcendental Etudes
Polyphonic Studies:
Bach Well-Tempered Clavier:
Book 1: No.20, 24
Book 2: No.22


28 Op.101
29 Op.109
30 Op.110
31 Op.111
32 Op.106

This is a list I submitted for another thread. It is taken from the 2-volume edition by Liszt and published by Boswell. The ordering may be Liszt's, I don't really know.

Volume one

1 Op49 No2
2 Op49 No1
3 Op79
4 Op14 No2
5 Op14 No1
6 Op2 No1
7 Op10 No1
8 Op10 No2
9 Op2 No2
10 Op2 No3
11 Op10 No3
12 Op13
13 Op22
14 Op28
15 Op7
16 Op78
17 Op26
18 Op31 No3


Volume two

19 Op31 No1
20 Op90
21 Op27 No1
22 Op27 No2
23 Op54
24 Op31 No2
25 Op53
26 Op81a
27 Op57
28 Op101
29 Op110
30 Op109
31 Op111
32 Op106


John

Thanks, Freddy and drumour for your respective lists. It's most interesting how similar they are, and their rankings are pretty close to how I'd rank them myself from a pedagogical standpoint (i.e. as a guide for the uninitiated). I'm greatly looking forward, Freddy, to studying your ancillary material in conjunction with the particular sonatas you've proposed; your general approach to tackling the cycle strikes me as immensely valuable and based in a long and intimate experience of involvement with it. As for your list, drumour, I remember poring avidly over this as a 15-year-old beginner itching to play everything Beethoven wrote for the piano and (at any rate, for the first 4 or 5 sonatas I tackled) following its suggest order of study. Over the 4+ decades since then I've never managed to track it down , so I'm thoroughly delighted and grateful to be able to refer to it again!

A propos my earlier post to this topic - in response to Phlebas' OP - it's interesting to note, here too, the high positioning of Op.31/2. This is one of the set that I took to like a duck to water whilst still very inexpert technically, and it's always remained one of the easiest for me. Such difficulties as it has presented for me I've always found possible to master straightforwardly simply through applying ordinary musicianship skills sufficiently rigourously, and thereafter my fingers knew what to do. (If only it were like that with all the repertoire!) However, posters other than myself seem not to dispute that the sonata is pretty difficult. Given that, I'd be most eager to read anyone's remarks regarding what passages they find particularly troublesome (and in what respect), or about their more general difficulties with particular movements or with the work as a whole.

Any thoughts on this?

what Beethoven Sonatas do you play Scordatura?

Whenever I see 110 placed near the most difficult of the list-- and I usually do-- I think: this list is not going to be meaningful to me.


-J

Why is that?

I usually say the same when I see Op. 7 near the bottom.

"Technically" speaking, It doesn't quite compare to the other late sonatas.