What is the hardest piano piece ever? As musicians, we often look up to the best and hope to emulate them in some way. The piano is a versatile instrument with a long history, and over the years, some very creative musicians have written impressive music for it. In no particular order, here are ten of the hardest piano pieces ever.
Table of Contents:
Get exclusive interviews, fascinating articles, and inspiring lessons delivered straight to your inbox. Unsubscribe at any time.
What makes a piano piece “hard”? The answer may seem obvious at first: fast runs, dense chords, wide leaps, challenging sight reading. But even novice piano players understand that playing fast isn’t all there is to play well.
Classical piano is infamous for its technical difficulty, but what’s arguably more difficult is applying both the composer’s emotional intentions and your own personal interpretation to a technically challenging piece. All with needle-like accuracy. Difficult classical pieces also tend to be very long and require an incredible memory to perform.
Meanwhile, the hardest piano pieces in jazz music call for skillful and creative improvisation over complex chord progressions. This requires a masterful understanding of chord theory, harmony, and scales. As improvisers, jazz pianists must also have a highly trained ear so they can play what they imagine in their head…instantly.
In this article, we won’t just discuss the hardest piano pieces, but break down exactly why they’re so difficult.
Why it’s hard: If you ask any classical musician what the hardest song on piano is, chances are they’ll say Piano Concerto No. 3 by Sergei Rachmaninoff. This concerto, often nicknamed the “Rach 3,” was intended as a show-off piece to dazzle audiences on Rachmaninoff’s first American tour. This work graces many top-ten lists for good reason: despite being based around a relatively simple, singable theme, this concerto requires both virtuosity and passion.
Why it’s hard: “The Little Bell” by Liszt requires extremely big leaps in the right hand done at dizzyingly fast speeds. The melody is brought out by the thumb, but the repeating D-sharps in the pinky act as a twinkling “bell.” This masterpiece in virtuosity and composition is an arrangement of a melody by Paganini, one of the most famous virtuosic violinists who ever lived.
Why it’s hard: Pianote’s Sam Vesely names highly variable harmonies and a high-precision, “nearly impossible to recreate” right hand as reasons for why this piece is so challenging. But what I love most about Oscar Peterson’s performance is that despite the speed and climax near the end, Peterson never relinquishes control; he keeps it cool. There’s a reason why Louis Armstrong called him “the man with four hands.”
Why it’s hard: Ravel wrote “Gaspard de la Nuit” to one-up Mily Balakirev’s “Islamey.” In other words, this whirlwind of a piece was designed to be hard. And it’s lived up to its name—today, the three-part suite makes a frequent appearance on lists of difficult piano pieces. The dense score is nearly incomprehensible; pianist Steven Osborne even likened it to solving never-ending quadratic equations.
Why it’s hard: “Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2” isn’t the hardest piece ever, but it’s certainly one of the most well-known and was made famous by Tom and Jerry. Both the dramatic lassan and the energetic friska sections of the Rhapsody contain big leaps, tangling chords, and swift runs that require a high level of dexterity and accuracy. But while this song can be frustratingly difficult, it’s also super rewarding. The melody is iconic, and you can tell the piece was designed to be performed.
Why it’s hard: While “Mists” is technically challenging, more than anything, it’s an intellectual feat to understand. Considered stochastic music (music composed with the aid of equations and probability), “Mists” was composed by an architect and composer who used math formulas to make mind-bending music. Check out how one academic re-creates the stochastic sections of “Mists” with the programming language Python.
Why it’s hard: Inspired by a new, six-octave piano that was gifted to him, Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” (which means pianoforte in German) celebrates the new capabilities of the instrument. This piece features big, majestic chords and rapid passages. Apparently, it was the only sonata Beethoven wrote a metronome marking for (132)—a speed which only the most skilled pianists can follow.
Why it’s hard: Being able to improvise on “Giant Steps” is considered a rite of passage for many jazz musicians. The reason why this piece is so challenging to improvise upon is because the chord progression is so unusual. The music theory behind the genius of “Giant Steps” is complex but fascinating—check out the short documentary above and try not to get a headache!
Why it’s hard: You can tell this song will be intense by the sheer mess of trills and glissandos at the very beginning. Scriabin’s fifth sonata has a reputation for being tough, and its dense score, gigantic chords, key changes, and speed make this song maze-like. Inspired by a poem by the composer, its passages conjure up images of “flight” and “spirals” and play with non-traditional sonata form.
Why it’s hard: With a name like “the devil’s staircase,” this piece is rightfully terrifying. Ligeti was fascinated by mathematics and Escher’s staircase, along with the existential crisis of climbing never-ending stairs. The chords involved in this piece will tie your fingers into knots, but the most extraordinary part of Etude No. 13 may be its eight fortes! For a fascinating deep dive into the theory behind this piece, see Explore the Score’s walkthrough here.
Unfortunately, these pieces are probably inaccessible to most people. Professionals train for decades before they can tackle the hardest piano pieces.
But that doesn’t mean the rest of us should give up! And just because a song is hard, doesn’t mean it sounds nice. Personally, I find some of the experimental pieces interesting, but I wouldn’t choose them for my next road trip soundtrack.
At Pianote, we believe that at the end of the day, music should create joy. So, find pieces that you like the sound of, that are just hard enough to give you a meaningful challenge and sense of achievement.
And who knows? Perhaps one day you’ll have the chops to bust out Ligeti!
You May Also Like:
Charmaine Li is a Vancouver writer who has played piano for over 20 years. She holds an Associate diploma (ARCT) from the Royal Conservatory of Music and loves writing about the ways in which music—and music learning—affects the human experience. Charmaine manages The Note. Learn more about Charmaine here.
/marketing/pianote/promos/april/banner-bg-m.webp)
/marketing/pianote/promos/april/banner-title.webp)