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Well, a fugue is a fugue Anyway, don't you guys feel the same way when you see the Op 90 ranked so high as well?

Op. 90 is hard though....

It confuses me when I see op.101 placing as less difficult than op.110 as well...

Hard yes, but THAT hard to hit the right notes? No.

All 32. In principle, the only ones I'd (so far) shy away from performing publicly are Opp 106 (because I don't know the notes well enough to get through the whole work comfortably at a reasonable pace) and 27/1 (on account of its relentless finale, which I find uniquely taxing in terms of achieving sufficiently controlled, musically guaged execution). Both remain works in progress. In practice, right now I wouldn't be up to performing any of them, thanks to a current spurt of osteoarthritis affecting the fingers of my right hand!

Impressing! Very impressing. Are you a professional? Have you played the piano your whole life?

Aww you're nice. And yeah, it's pretty hard to hit the right notes...

Hehe, would you be so kind and explain why so?

See why it is so ridiculous to rank things like this? It's impossible, because difficulty is an individual thing. Why do we need these kinds of lists anyway? What's the point?

Well, the alberti bass in 10ths in the first movement is hard, as well the end of the development with weaving hands. The right hand figures are tough too. Then in the second movement you have ornamentation in running 16th figures, as well as dense writing for both hands, which makes voicing and balance a challenge.

Then there are the musical difficulties.

I'm not trying to point out that it's the hardest, just that it is hard and deserving to be on the upper half of the difficulty scale...it's also hard to just conceptualize and make into a coherent piece that flows from section to section (especially in the rondo).

As a student, I can see somewhat of an appeal. "I have played x, and I'm approximately this far away from y." This should be the least of your worries however, and it's certainly possible to find out for yourself without much effort.

I don't think there is a point at all stores, but I think it lies in the psycological factors of the human mind. Some find it amusing to do rankings or just to discuss things that are pointless and in no need for much thoughts(but still involves a subject they find interesting)

You may have a point about the alberti bass in tenths kuanpiano, but I still find passages in Op 78 or even the third movement of Op 27 No 2 that scares me more.. Although I most say, Op 90 is a fantastic sonata, one of my favorites.

If you were to put the Chopin Ballades or Scherzos in these ranking, where would they be put? What Beethoven sonatas are they comparable to in difficulty?

I share your feelings. When writing my post on Op.31/2 I contemplated including Op.110 alongside it; my personal experience of both sonatas has been identical in all respects. In terms of "pianistic" content, I find it one of the most congenial of all 32 for the fingers, and marvellously uniform as regards the difficulty-level of its very diverse requirements. No doubt, then, it would be equally rewarding to read posts on personal difficulties with this sonata as well.

scordatura, in case you missed my question, I will ask you now again.. Have you played the piano for your whole life or did you start playing later?

Could someone please rank all the works in the standard piano literature in order?

Just the standard literature?

I started piano (and getting practically involved with music generally) in early '69 aged 15. I began teaching professionally and playing semi-professionally (never more than that) in '74 before taking up harpsichord and Renaissance/Baroque performance study. The larger part of my performing experience has been in ensemble-playing of some kind (song accompaniment, chamber music, continuo playing etc.), with solo performance as a side-line. I retired some years ago from working professionally, but continue to teach and perform on a limited basis, dividing my available time between piano-practice, research and theoretical writing on piano-technique and the teaching of it, developing a website on the same and trying to keep the house in shape!

Oops, that was meant to be a PM as it's totally off-topic - sincere apologies to all!

Baloney.

That's sort of true provided that you omit the middle section of the 2nd movement. But I assume neither of you does that.

I assume that's what has made so many people traditionally rank this sonata among the very hardest.

Mark, of course that section is hard. But do you really think this sonata tends to appear in the top five in difficulty because the list author was thinking about that section?

Or do you think it's because there are fugues (and fugues are, you know, hard), and it's late Beethoven (so, you know, generally mysterious and deep) and there are strange structural things like a sequence of slow repeated G major chords?

Let's find common ground here-- can we agree that if we removed that middle section from the 2nd movement, then the sonata should really be positioned mid-list?

-J