Hardest piece you know?

Originally Posted by Bart Delissen

As an oboest the hardest piece may be Rossini's "La Scala Di Seta"

Oboist***

And..yeah it's hard, but it's something you have to learn to live with since its one of the most common audition excerpts.

That being said...

The hardest piece that I have come across on Oboe is the Richard Strauss Concerto. I love it, but it's so hard.

My hardest piece would be Chopins Waltz in A minor..... "what?! did he just say Waltz in A minor?"

yeah..


the left hand does 2 octave jumps. but im getting it down slowly ;

Leopold Godowsky wrote a set of studies called 'Studies on Chopin's Etudes'.
And the basic premise was to take the aspects of technique that Chopin explores in each individual etude and then to take it further. For example a lot of them are just versions of the original etudes for left hand alone. This may sound nuts but it works amazingly. There is also a version of the famous C major (op. 10 no. 1) in which the left hand partakes in the same arpeggio pattern as the right hand and the melody is shared between the hands.

The craziest are the ones where he combines two of the etudes at the same time (the harmony is very carefully and cleverly interwoven)... Of course these really are some of the most technically demaning pieces ever written and are rarely performed. Godowsky supposedly first played them at a party in front of Horowitz and Rachmaninov, and both of them were dumbfounded....

There you go:

Perniciosus - Solo Piano

Something damn difficult to play, especially pages 5-6 and little bit 7

Originally Posted by nikolas

There you go:

Perniciosus - Solo Piano

Something damn difficult to play, especially pages 5-6 and little bit 7

I have tried, I concur

3 pieces, all for clarinet.

first, flight of the bumblebee. good lord. it's hard enough, but add in the fact that you have to breathe on a wind instrument, and it gets a hell of a lot harder.

second, Etude number 32 from C Rose's "32 etudes for the clarinet". this is crazy. again, you have a hard time breathing in this one. it has double octave jumps in the space of a 16th note. it uses almost exclusively 16th notes, and it is supposed to go at 140, if not faster. also, it is in Db Major.

finally, the grand daddy, in my mind, another of C. Rose's stuff, out of his book "40 studies for the clarinet", study number 20. it goes at 104, and it has 16th notes,trills, extremely high notes, followed by extremly low notes, and finally, for a good chunk of the piece, SYNCOPATED 32NDS. probably the most technically and rhythmically challenging piece I have ever played.

*cough*Bartok Contrasts*cough*

Flight of The Bumble Bee for trumpet.

I think that Flight of The Bumble Bee is the holy grail (or at least Damn hard) for any wind instrument that requires a person to breathe.

i just slur the whole thing