The Most Difficult Piano Pieces of All Time (Ft. Sophie) 

YES! But why is it always Eddy struggling to stay in focus?

@@geegeelyn When they make videos together, Brett is usually the one who takes care of all the technical aspects. Last time they were apart because of quarantine, Eddy himself said that he couldn't function without Brett... 😄

I couldn’t that video, could you link it?

10% camera, 90% lighting.

Ikr that is smooth af

Nice one!

Very realistic one 😭😭

@Hamza Mzali Spammer

oof that just happened to me when clicking on the video and this comment was just like predicted the future

Lmao

especially after so many people now call Chopin as chop him

She completely butchered Balakirev though.

@@justsomerandomguy7693 shopaign?

she pronounced them all in HER accent.

@@justsomerandomguy7693 How is it supposed to be pronounced? I pronounce show-pan

Compare other pianists with Gulda, he is the only pianist who understands that music.

Absolutely. My litte brother is learning Fur Elise right now and I made it a point to have him hear how Lang Lang played it. There's a world of difference between playing the right notes/rhythm and the musicality involved in playing it well: voicing, dynamic contrast, texture, tempo change.

@@TheGuyCalledXrubato is generally not a great idea in Beethoven, though

@@fh854 Rubato is a great idea no matter what composer you're playing, it just happens to varying degrees.

*classically panics*

600th like

@@SM-zt5ml there isnt even 600 likes yet 💀💀

@Hamza Mzali ew contemporary

What he’s playing is an insult to contemporary music

Yeee

I play both violin and piano, I already new

I know :'( haha

@Ultra Legendary Master Take a look at the fugue in Shostakovich's Prelude and Fugue No. 15, in D flat major. It will blow your mind, it was a nightmare to memorize haha

Yes

Haha!

She’s the best

True on every instrument though

Me and Sophie: synchronized deep sigh of pain

as someone with small hands, yes

@Gísiu Wolf same ;-; my hands are not big but my piano teacher always says I have a good stretch and I was able to reach an octave since I was seven

@@shiragoldmusic שלוםםםם

Me too.

I would love for her and sister to do the Ling Ling workout together, with both the violin and piano ! 😀

'blindfolded', 'play' you filthy boi

@@PB-cb7ht Γαμώ, beat me to it

@@alexandero9936 might wanna edit out the swears. The twoset bots will get you. Twoset viewers are fragile

yea I agree, when I'm playing moonlight sonata (1st movement), any mistake in pacing will leave a sour taste in my mouth.

@@LC5234 any time I play a bass chord too loud or too soft feels like a glaring error

@@LC5234 The voicing in that piece is so hard

The Chaconne is the embodiment of that, though it also has technically demanding parts especially the ending. It also sounds amazing on the piano, listen to Helene Grimaud play it

Wow, seriously.... Bro Liszt is no joke, it must’ve been so hard

Wish I could play pieces like that though, bur sadly I can only reach an octave by stretching my hands to the max and using the edge of the keys, not really possible to 'relax' the hand when it comes only reach the notes when it's at the max stretch lmao XD have to stick less octavey pieces

@Jannis Glueck For me, I struggle with tension while playing fast or repetitive passages. I didn’t have formal lessons for most of secondary school until college and developed a lot of poor technique I had to relearn.

@@zelementsllp4938 and then.. ernst’s der erlkonig for violin 😭

I got a similar practicing a transcendental etude. No 6 and 11 killed my hands. Tried no 12 but caused too much pain so I had to stop. No 3 causes me no technical troubles, I just quit it because I got too frustrated trying to produce the sound I wanted from it.

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That's the case with a lot of difficult pieces lol, they lure you into this false sense of security before mangling your self-esteem entirely.

@@sarabensouda7422 Spammer Hamza

@@saro2991 so that makes him a spammer too right?

@@fevre_dream8542 Winter Wind relates to this comment

Definitely. It's funny how many Liszt pieces could be in the 'most difficult.' Totentanz solo piano version, to name one.

I honestly thought she will make a generic Mazeppa reference but this is on a different level entirely.

For me it was very weird she didn't put any pieces by prokofiev, rachmaninoff, stravinsky or scriabin in. There is also sorabji, barber etc. But those are not mainstream so doesn't surprise me that they are missing

@@hugod327 She mentions the names of Prok and Rach, though. Her personal preferences may also have been factored into her list, which is totally ok. And if I'm not wrong, Barber is more popular in the U.S. than in Europe, where Sophie is located in. He was American, after all. Sorabji and Alkan are for...the gods🙃

@@clairepianist I am from germany tho and I know of barber. But yes you are right

These are all easy apart from 4:33 which is a masterpiece but Chopins dog waltz doesn’t deserve to be in the same list as chopsticks

@@tryinganna9883 Apparently Chopin's Minute waltz is also called the Dog Waltz? I meant this: /watch?v=HtPi1j3fK_Q

@@jamesrockybullin5250 yea he wrote is for his gf at the time, when they took a walk into the park she saw a dog and said to Chopin himself “if I had your talent I’d write a song about that dog” and the dog was meant to have been a small dog hence the name a lot of the composers have hilarious stories to their music, Handel used to throw shit and shout at the violinists when they would tune up shit like that

@@tryinganna9883 Daym, do you have a source that he wrote the Dog waltz? When I googled it, it said the composer was unknown.

Tough choices

Beautifully said. Also technique, not technic

@@dariusmite1562 Oh man, I knew there was something off..haha Edit: adjusted it.

Feel like for some cases and pieces, technicality is the beginning and understanding and emotion is the finish

@@yorkzie7593 True true

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More like he gets his own Liszt

@@sarabensouda7422 Spammer

And they didn't even put his sonata in b minor.... that is what I would consider the hardest liszt piece. Just look at the presto movement 😂 just listening to the whole piece made me lose confidence

@@user-qp1yg2bu1m I was shouting Don Juan across the screen lmao Then the second one I was shouting SONATA and it becomes some random piece I’ve never heard 😂

yes😂

Timestamp please?

@@cke900 Pretty much the entire video ? 😅

It was quarantine, he was just excited to be part of something 🤣

@@cke900 8:30 for example

yes especially us piano players ☺️

R u talking bout simps my friend is one

@Franz Liszt bruh

Yeah I’ve played for 6 years and still haven’t mastered it.

@@notmusictheory74 Uhhh I think they're making fun of fur elise because it's so overplayed ;)

I once saw the video of Valentina Lisitsa playing Für Elise as a second encore (at a concert in Seoul). The audience laughed at first when they recognized the piece, then hushed when they heard what she was doing with it. She made it lush and emotional. Unexpectedly gorgeous.

@@plainmarienc Yes. Playing it isn't a problem, but making the audience moved is a completely different story.

@@plainmarienc fun fact fur Elise is used as a school bell in Korea in some schools

Indeed! Ha, ha, ha, ha!

I didn't!

@Hamza Mzali I hate you

@@pe-peron8441 Just report his crap as spam; he's spamming this entire comments section.

@Hamza Mzali Spammer

So true 😭 I have very small hands(I can’t even play an octave) and so it’s hard for me to play difficult pieces.

Yes happy tears only! :)

@Hamza Mzali Spammer

@@xlilyx3396 But these pieces are not so difficult for people with big hands. ANYTHING well played is difficult to do.

Unpopular opinion, but I think smaller hands actually have some advantages in certain kinds of music because we can play between the black keys a lot easier than people with big hands. Yuja doesn't have big hands and is a tiny person, but she has zero problem playing most music, and I wonder if some of that is because her small hands allow her to be more agile. If you look closely, you can tell that she has to roll a lot of intervals and when she has to play loud octaves, she often hits extra notes.

LMAOOO

🤣🤣🤣🤣

@Hamza Mzali Spammer

LMFAOOOOOOO

And liszt can play 400 notes (i wrote this reply at 420 likes lol)

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-rCQ0x5gN1fM.html

Ah! It's the long-running RU-vid-evangelist of Alkan -- OrangeSodaKing, himself! Thanks for always repping the most underrated composer in all of classical music!

Sorabji:Hold my 336 pages of Opus Archimagicum

Lumbye: Thanks, I'll use your champagne as an instrument.

@@EliteKnightHelm I will, with huge pleasure

Absolutely

@Hamza Mzali 😆

@Hamza Mzali Spammer

Its not a simple list but a Liszt ...sorry

@@kestrel3509 I was waiting for someone to tell that joke ahahah

yes we need Sophie asmr

@Hamza Mzali Spammer

@@pvandck spammer

Oui oui

I don't enjoy overly the final long fugal movement in Beethoven's 'Hammerklavier' either. It's incredibly hard to perfom, but sounds like a flashy, extended technical exercise more than an actual part of the sonata. Beethoven himself was aware of this, and suggested that if performers wished they could just end the sonata on its third movement.

þere is no line

@@iainrobb2076 Where did you learn that about the Hammerklavier?

@@BRNRDNCK From the liner notes, if I remember, of the Alfred Brendel edition of the late piano sonatas.

if you think liszt is all flash, you clearly don't know liszt

“Oh she passed away? Ok”

@Hamza Mzali Spammer

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-rCQ0x5gN1fM.html🎹🎹🎹

@@sarabensouda7422 Spammer

This Sophie??

@@santyr6499 No, it’s Sophie oui oui

@@santyr6499 yup. She plays violin and piano equally well.

So true!!! You feel music!👍🏻 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 🙋🏻‍♂️

@Hamza Mzali 😆

@Hamza Mzali shut up

@Hamza Mzali Spammer

Same here. While I may be a self-taught cellist, I don't have the professional upbringing and knowledge that these people have. And since I am currently planning out and writing a slice-of-life webcomic about a music uni, it requires tons of research, and videos like these are a big eye-opener to the ins and outs of music education, musicality, theory and many others even down to its history. So yeah, I'm with you on that. And I'm more than grateful for having discovered Twoset's channel.

Yep, true.

@Hamza Mzali Spammer

@@aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah What an asshole. Even spamming isn't getting you noticed by anyone who appreciates music.

.

Well, Reger's BACH pales in comparison to Sorabji's 3rd Organ Symphony, but it's still really crazy.

I attended a recital at the Eastman School in which the organist played that Reger. I was absolutely astounded. What an amazing piece.

@@MatthewChapmanSTL The Reger BACH piece is actually easier than his seven Chorale Fantasies. The Durufle piece is hell-on-wheels to both learn and play. It took me three years and eight months to learn. An absolute monster. But so sublime and both inspired and inspiring!

@@josephlindquist506 I remember attending an organ recital for a grad student I knew at college, and it was a Durufle piece, and there were singers in the balcony behind me. I remember being astounded at that piece, too. Was it perhaps the Veni Creator?

@@MatthewChapmanSTL Most likely. The piece is frequently presented with verses of the chant sung between the variations.

Even as an intermediate player I felt crazy having so much trouble on simple pieces... Every note has to be masterfully played or it sounds awful. There's playing the notes and then thinking about how they're played.

It's like bowling vs. golf. Golf you're having to navigate ridiculous terrains, hit all sorts of different kinds of shots, spins, etc. and pros make mistakes but noobs would be making mistakes on practically every shot. In bowling you're just doing the same thing over and over and over again, but between the super challenging oil patterns they give pros and being ever so slightly off can totally ruin the game and hand you a loss. Noobs might string together a couple strikes on simple oil patterns but aren't getting 230+ game after game after game on all sorts of different oil patterns. Definitely different kinds of challenging - golf on the surface looks way more challenging but they're really both equally challenging.

@@planetary-rendez-vous I'm learning Mozart's Fantasia in D Minor, and I'm finding the Presto cadenzas easier than the Adagio and Allegretto parts

So do I blame quarantine or credit it

That man is a vampire now

#teampianoviola XD

^ a terrible player who keeps on promoting himself 😅

He is absolutely glowing and he's so good-looking that i forgot to press the like button...

Interestingly, Ravel himself could play Le Gibet but not Scarbo. This is a good example to show how subjective this "most difficult" lists are.

Le Gibet is the most extreme example of "technically easy, musically difficult". It is the Scarbo of musical difficulty. Although Scarbo is also the Scarbo of musical difficulty.

@@williammanning7207 Yea agreed. I am working on Le Gibet now and the accuracy you need to keep the b-flat clear and distinct from the rest is frankly insane.

Completely off topic. Why are they suddenly in quarantine? Isn't the world kind of back opening...almost back to 'normal ' with some restrictions ?

@@brendamiller5785 Australia has not enacted overall shutdowns - they close and strictly quarantine by the state when they have outbreaks. So probably some of the Eastern states have an outbreak, and so they're shut down for a few weeks.

@@brendamiller5785 i'm late but they were quarantined because they went back to australia from singapore, and anyone traveling to australia must quarantine for two weeks

depends on the skill level of the soloist, but in professional orchestras, yes

Tbh kinda true but also kinda false. Piano concertos are not just red carpet for pianists, they're complex pieces where orchestra is as important as piano (talking about Rach3 rather than Chopin concerti). So if there is "tutti" and FF in orchestra and you as a pianist have to play as well, orchestra can't play mf in order to have piano be heard. Well it can but the result is underwhelming anyways. Imagine Prokofiev's 2nd concerto, the return of the orchestra after the piano cadenza in the first movement. That's the mission impossible for pianist - loudest as you can, accent on every note (as written by the composer himself) and flushing-like sound of orchestra that can make the hall explode.

Piano concertos are written such that there are just enough musicians in the orchestra making just enough sound that if every musician is playing at the written dynamics and the piano is of concert quality, the piano should be heard to satisfactory levels by the audience. I doubt that professional orchestra musicians are massively messing up their dynamics, so I'm going to say that the pianist is most likely to be the weak link if I can't hear the piano.

+ the piano technician. The tuning work is vital both for the tone quality and sound.

usually concert conductors generally can adjust themselves as per the soloist choices... i noticed this in the chopin piano concerto no 1 ... where the orchestra kinda plays like a accompaniment in most of the cases and not having like a conversation with the soloist... but then i heard zimmerman's recording and he himself conducts it and makes it such that there is a active conversation between the soloist and the orchestra and not just a solo performance... the same with Tchaikovsky piano concerto where the role is reversed as the main melody is carried by the orchestra and piano sometimes has to be the accompaniment .. piano concertos truly difficult in the sense that people think piano is a solo instrument but it really isnt ..

I know right? i actually googled her and she is German and Italian. Such an amazing accent

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Thanks for this extra bit of information!

This reminds me of a story: Balakirev played 'Islamey' for Liszt, he wanted to get his opinion, and after hearing the piece once, Liszt went to the piano and played it right back to Balikirev perfectly. The man was just insanely gifted.

I'm honestly so glad that "La Campanella" was nowhere near this video. It's reached such a meme status on the Internet, but I don't think it really belongs on that list of insanely difficult piano works. I think it's more like Chopin's Op. 10 No. 1 where yes, it's fucking hard and requires a lot of specialized practice, but it's kind of a spammy, one-dimensional study (they're études, not concert pieces!) that if you really dedicate yourself to learning exactly those techniques in those pieces, you can actually learn to sound pretty decent at them without being a particularly good pianist. I've actually heard poor pianists sound pretty good at those études, like people with only 2-3 years experience sound competent. Meanwhile, they would sound terrible trying to play something technically much simpler like "Clair de Lune" because "Clair de Lune" actually requires you to listen, not just hit the correct buttons at the right time.

@@mbvglider Well said! A beautifully played Claire de la Lune can be heavenly

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@@sarabensouda7422 Spammer

You are so right. There are "Technicians", and there are "Musicians". The best are both.

THIS! And people are favoring so much the "technicians", I don't know why. Ideally, a musician is both, but I'd take a musician that is very musical but not too good with technique over a great technician with no musicality. Music is meant to express something and make you feel emotions. What's the point of great technique if we don't feel a thing?

Lang Lang?

Agree

Brett’s doing Mendelssohn concerto for 4 mil, but I’d love to see that happen one day!

Oh My God!! They ARE playing it!!! No Sophie, unfortunately, but astonishing nonetheless....

@Hamza Mzali I like your playing and touch; but please, stop spamming the comment section with your videos.

Yes y Brett's skin looks so white and shine y

So... a 23 minute long video about some of the most amazing pieces of the piano repertoire, featuring a wonderful pianist, and you're focusing on their skin ? 🤔

@@C4pt41nN3m0 _SOME_ TwoSet fans. Luckily, many of us care about the actual content...

@@MissTwoSetEncyclopedia I enjoyed the content while also admiring their fabulous skin the whole video✨

@@NoOne-hl2eo Glad to know their fabulous skin didn't prevent you from enjoying the music. Pretty sure Brett and Eddy would be disappointed to learn that their looks are so distracting that their followers can't focus on the content they're working hard to produce... 😘

I'm also surprised they didn't mention the 2nd movement, it's intense as heck!

@Hamza Mzali Spammer

Zimmerman is the best I think

Arrau

Yes, the opening of Beethoven 4 is very hard to do well. Lee Luvisi said if you can really play the opening well, you’re probably good enough to play the rest of the concerto well.

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Yes! If I didn't know, I probably wouldn't even notice that it's her second language.

Are you sure it's not her third or fourth language?

I don't even can😂

@Mark Wang German. She is from Austria.

Hi ! Yes I agree with you I’m the same as you 😂😂😭 Ps: we say “I can’t even explain” and no “I don’t even can explain” Because there are 2 auxiliary verbs in your sentence 😇☺️

@TheCartoon94 Dabs oui oui!

@Hamza Mzali Spammer

Rautavaara! Suomi! Torilla tavataan!

listening to her is a delight

I wouldn't be surprised if Yuja is Chinese for "flex" because she is a being borne to "flex" on us. Hahahaha

@@VaioletteWestover Her Chinese name is 羽佳 which means "beautiful wings" which kinda fits her tbh

She has huge hands!

@@liellavi5722 She doesn't, though. There are pictures of her hands online. Her hands are decently sized for a woman, but they're not huge by any metric. She can stretch for a 10th, but you can hear in music with many 10ths (like Schumann Piano Concerto) that she tends to stagger them. Her hands look about the same as mine, and I'm considered to have small hands.

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*sobs in tenths*

true i found chopins winter etude difficult at first but then it became easier once the muscle memory kicked in ... i am no pro but i can atleast hit the notes and have the dynamics with my left.. but i really found difficult to master the tempest 3rd movement like the balance between my hands for me always never works.. maybe cause i dont practice the right way or maybe its my digital piano (cause me very broke college student). also chopins winter etude has a freedom of you can play it little slower and also not care too much about the dynamics as majority of the piece kinda repeats the first bars...hence these are etudes like meant for hining your skills not to show them off...

So true... For one of my graded pieces it was all semi quaver runs on the right hand so that got into my muscle memory and it took immense control not to speed it up and to keep it in time with the left hand which was accompanying with quavers and crotchets

I think that's true on all instruments. In some ways more difficult not to speed up on melodic instruments without accompaniment, as they don't have anything to hold them back except an inner sense of beat.

@@materdeimusicd.buckley2974 yep I agree with that also, because I also play saxophone and when a run is in my muscle memory it is incredibly hard to not speed up especially when playing without a metronome

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One answer to that - slow down and use the double beat metronome practice. Many pianos themselves won't even support such quick repeating notes, and certainly no piano will support it at the metronome mark using the single beat metronome practice advocated by Sousa. And many other pieces sound better in double beat than single beat even if they can technically support both.

@@johnb6723 double beat is used when you don’t want to admit that you aren’t good enough for correct tempo

even the poem can give you nightmares

I suffered that piece too 🥲

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My hands have stayed the same size since I started playing as a kid (i.e. tiny - most 12-year olds have bigger hands than mine). Octaves+ were my bane but doing a bunch of stretching exercises (off and with the piano) and good rolling/angling techniques have helped tremendously. From a barely octave reach to a barely there 9 and a doable (slow) 10. Also, there are custom pianos with narrower keys available. But I agree, repetitive octaves and insane stretches still make me cry...

Yes we do! And it exists. Steinway do a narrow-keys retrofit, if you pay them enough. If we demand it and talk about it enough, eventually the mass manufacturers will do it.

Play on period instruments, the keys are typically narrower than the Steinway type, the catch is you need to be more careful with your touch... can't apply as much upper arm strength on a period piano as one does on a Steinway

Yes. Hands are not too small. It’s the keys which are too large.

I see the licc, I like

Thanks!

Wait, I'm confused. Why are they quarantined? Is one of them sick? Or is it a traveling precaution?

@@blankexpression34 They're travelling and have the obligation to stay in a quarantine hotel for a certain period of time after their international flight.

@@MissTwoSetEncyclopedia Ah okay

@@blankexpression34 returning to Australia-maybe for visa reasons. Have to quarantine x2 weeks. They got out a day or two ago, but so far they haven’t made a video together,. Must be enjoying family. And fresh air.

@@susanbryant6516 Mm okay. That's good that they've been able to see their families again

Ives- Concord Sonata

Surprised to see no Méreaux or Alkan on either list lol

Alkan le preux

Alkan Concerto for Solo Piano is another one I'd undoubtedly add

Also, Sorabji Opus Archimagicum and Sonata 3 are 2 of his hardest pieces and definitely harder than Opus Clavicembalisticum and Symphonic Variations.

@Hamza Mzali Spammer

@@pvandck Hamza is a tone deaf idiot who thinks you can bludgeon an audience to form. But their "music" really sucks.

YEAH i'm just looking for this comment🙈

I can tell they all were sharing one braincell at that moment 😂

Yes!!

Absolutely. As someone who plays piano but started with jazz rather than classical, I feel a lot of people don't remember the incredible jazz pieces at all. Classical music is lovely, but jazz is just so fun

@@michaelturner5093 Oscar Peterson and Art Tatum!

Same man

Congratulations, keep it up ! 🤗

@@MissTwoSetEncyclopedia Thank you so much! Will do :)

@Hamza Mzali Sounds great!

@Hamza Mzali Spammer

Don't worry sounding like a dying animal for the first few years is normal😂 but then on it gets easier and easier (relatively)