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Having seen every performance at the Cliburn Competition last year, I was overwhelmed by the technical quality of virtually every performance. One comment on the Cliburn FB page (or maybe it was Cliburn.org) got me thinking. There was a Russian pianist, Nikolay Khozyainov, who in his semifinal recital played what the comment claimed was "the most difficult piece ever written": Busoni's arrangement of Liszt's Fantasie uber zwei Motive aus Mozarts DIE HOCHZEIT DES FIGARO, which was published in 1912. However the same competitor actually broke down during a performance of Chopin's Op. 10 No. 2.

So, is the Busoni the most difficult piano piece ever? Did Ravel deliberately try to make Gaspard de la nuit harder than Islamey? Is Feux Follets more technically difficult than Op. 10 No. 2? Although this has already been done before, I thought it might be interesting to compare notes on what people think is THE most challenging PIANO work, from a technical standpoint, in the following categories:

Baroque (optional, if you want to include Bach)
Classical (Mozart/Haydn obviously up to "middle period" Beethoven"
Late Classical/Romantic (late Beethoven, Brahms, through Liszt and beyond)
Late/Post Romantic/Impressionist (Rachmaninov, Scryabin, Prokofiev, Busoni, Gadovsky, Debussy, Ravel, etc.)
"Modern" (e.g. Ligeti, Stravinsky, Barber, 2nd Viennese School, blah, blah, . . . )

I don't think there's any point in going beyond that. Stockhausen, Boulez, and that crew are totally beyond my ability to perform, let alone interpret, so I'm not that interested. Also, I don't care whether the categories are right. Really, I'm just interested in what people think is the most technically difficult piece within any classification they choose. I have my own candidates, which I'd be happy to share after seeing what others think. Remember, TECHNICAL is the criterion. We all know how hard it is to play Hummel correctly. OK, done.

Have a look at Hummel's A minor Piano Concerto (check it out on IMSLP) and tell me if you think that is easy!

Will be interested to read replies from other members. I once read that Brendel considered Busoni's Toccata one of the hardest pieces he ever played.

Cheers,

MA Hamelin makes a point to record the most difficult works, and damn if he doesn't do them pretty near flawlessly!

As far as the most difficult piece EVER, its not a reasonable question in some ways, because some composers wrote things that are truly impossible, essentially augen musik. I'm assuming we are speaking of solo repertoire, not concerti.

Personally, I've found Chopin G#m double thirds etude very difficult, along with Ravel Gaspard, some Liszt works and transcriptions, some pieces of Prokofiev sonatas and Bartok sonata.

As we all know, (and probably from the IT/science world,) there isn't the best, there is only better. So, in the piano composition world, the same probably will apply. There isn't the most difficult, there is only more difficult. May be some genius (or crazy) composers will also for the player to use his head and/or foot to play on the key board, too...

I would only value the opinion of someone who has mastered many extremely difficult works. That description would not really apply to me; I play things within my limits, and by virtuoso standards, I tend to play the more manageable works in the literature.

To me, the most difficult music is Boulez. Every aspect of it is uncomfortable, alien, and unapproachable.. I can't fathom the rhythms, I don't know enough about serialism to understand the techniques, and it's about as unpianistic as anything ever written.

Even though I've done some pretty heavy stuff, I still find Etudes of all sizes and shapes be some of the most difficult pieces in the repertoire. All of that work for 2 minutes-5 minutes of endless stress. I can't tell you how many times I've tried and given up on Ligeti, Chopin, Liszt, Scriabin, etc. Even ONE MEASURE A DAY was impossible for some Ligeti etudes.

With longer pieces, you have a chance to settle in, relax when needed and recoup when necessary; not too many pieces in the 20-30 minute range (and beyond) are nonstop punishment the way most etudes are!

It's very hard to separate technical difficulty from musical difficulty.

It needed a little searching to find but it was worth it to present below what is definitely, and without any question whatsoever, the most difficult to perform music composition.

I think Feux Follets is a bit harder, because the left hand has some very tricky stuff as well. The jumpy part is ridiculously hard if you want to play it at an above average tempo (average being the average of professional pianists). Getting op.10 no.2 above average is very difficult but you see a lot more little kids who can play it at a respectable tempo.

Baroque...not familiar enough with this.
Classical. Maybe Beethoven op.10 no.3, but I don't know Haydn well.
Late classical/Romantic. Maybe Liszt original 12 Grand Etudes if you take the score at face value, but I kind of doubt Liszt meant for some of the jumps to actually be played that fast and such. Alkan wrote some nightmares too.
Late Romantic. Maybe Busoni? His concerto is what, over an hour long?
Modern. There is a lot of ridiculous stuff like Sorabji and what not but I think someone who packs a lot of punch per minute is Hamelin.

It may be difficult - but it is hardly worth performing.

It has been done, however.

By Stump himself I would assume.

Actually not. After all, he did arrange it by accident - you can't really expect him to have performed it by accident too.

win.

Faerie's Aire and Death Waltz would be a clear winner if it was a piano piece. I think the tempo indication "slovenly" is the de facto default mode of many musicians (jk). "Cresc. or not" works well too. Wondering if "Rigatoni" is a little known variant of a more well-known late Renaissance dance, to be performed al dente.

I completely agree about musical and technical difficulty being inseparable. However, difficulty should always be functional, so the question isn't completely trivial. Has anyone ever heard or seen the Busoni/Liszt piece? It really is quite extraordinary. As to whether it's really worth the effort needed to learn it, even by a top-rank professional, I'm not so sure, partly because it often seems to be presenting technical challenges for their own sake.

Thanks for the reference to Hamelin. What an unbelievable repertoire, though I haven't had a chance to listen to much of his stuff yet. What I have heard (some Kapustin) is certainly pointing towards the kind of "most difficult" music I'm looking for, though I'll reserve judgement until I've heard some more.

I saw some ragtag group give a rather festive performance of it on YouTube once. Don't know if it is still there. Too lazy at the moment to look for it.

Must be THIS rather festive performance.....

http://youtu.be/sCgT94A7WgI

This changes from pianist to pianist, which have different hand anatomies and strengths and weaknesses in certain technical areas. Therefore there is no such thing as MOST difficult. One pianist's most difficult might be quite doable for another.

That said, we hear op 10/2, 25/6, feux follets and similar performed at even smaller piano competitions routinely at a convincing level nowadays.

In short, for today's well trained pianists there is no such thing as difficult. With enough diligent slow practice they eventually play every piece at an acceptable level.

Liszt would have been astonished by the technical ability of teenagers of our time.

That is definitely festive, though rather liberal WRT tempo and phrasing.

The following "etymology" of the work is interesting, specious or ironic though it may be (perhaps it's neither?):

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL70F30A3DE7D951B2

But returning to the matter at hand, someone has already compiled their own list of "most difficult" piano pieces - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL70F30A3DE7D951B2 - though they're all rather standard and predictable, except possibly the Art Tatum number. I was hoping to go beyond this list and find some quality piano music that really exploits the potential of the instrument and the finest performers who play it to the almost the maximum extent physically possible (though point taken from symphonicdance about "better" rather than "best"). So Kapustin, Gadovsky (symphonic metamorphoses), Rubinstein (e.g. that fearsome etude), and perhaps some more obscure composers (Henselt?) may have written some real gems that are super-difficult but are intended to do more than scare off terrified amateurs. I would not include the kind of encore potboilers that have helped to make Yuja Wang such a sensation.

Within the mainstream, I think it would be hard to top the 1837 version of what were to become Liszt's Transcendental Etudes for sheer sustained difficulty throughout a relatively long collection of pieces. If there's there's something else "out there" like that, I'll be all ears, as it were.

I guess the double irony about Hummel was kind of misplaced. I agree with argerichfan (except about being an Argerich fan). Actually I'm a Hummel fan, especially of his etudes, some of which are really tricky.

I also agree that Busoni's Toccata would be a good candidate for very, very difficult, though perhaps not "most". (http://javanese.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/4/48/IMSLP03658-Busoni_toccata297.pdf)