Top 10 Hardest Rachmaninoff Pieces for Piano

In honor of Rachmaninoff's recent birthday, here are his ten hardest works for piano! As always, these videos are not meant to be exact and the goal is to share Rachmaninov's music and my favorite recordings of his work.

**RACHMANINOV DIFFICULTIES**

There is hardly a major composer with a higher barrier of entry than Rachmaninoff. His easiest works already creep into the realm of early advanced, and his hardest works creep into the realm of absurdly difficult.

So why does Rachmaninoff has such a high technical barrier? For one, there is an inherent physicality in his works that stems from Rachmaninoff's own physical gifts. There is an almost devastating thickness and command of sound in nearly every texture, and his lushly Romantic style of counterpoint spawns all sorts of hidden voices that can only be dealt with by having tremendous powers of articulation. Many pieces also call for massive chords spanning well over an octave, adding to the physical requirements of playing his music.

This leads to the other side of the coin—clarity. With the terribly crowded staff and the multitude of lines, it is all too easy to end up with a soupy sound. The best Rachmaninov pianists are not only renowned for their large sound, but their ability to find the gold within the mud.

**TIMESTAMPS**
10. Études-Tableaux Op. 39 No.6 (7+)
0:00 Nikolai Lugansky
0:49 Nikolai Lugansky

9. Piano Concerto No.2 (7++)
1:26 Benno Moiseiwitsch
2:07 Sviatoslav Richter
2:48 Artur Rubinstein
3:59 William Kapell

8. Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini (7++)
5:19 Horacio Gutiérrez
6:03 Sergei Rachmaninov
6:46 Mikhail Rudy

7. Variations on a Theme of Corelli (8)
7:57 Andre Watts
8:19 Mikhail Pletnev

6. Piano Concerto No.1 (8)
9:11 Krystian Zimerman
9:43 John Lill
10:39 Simon Trpčeski
11:17 Vladimir Ashkenazy

5. Piano Concerto No.4 (8)
12:13 Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli
12:56 Vladimir Ashkenazy
13:43 Sergei Rachmaninov
14:21 Abbey Simon

4. Piano Sonata No.1 (8+)
15:18 Zlata Chochieva
16:05 Boris Berezovsky
17:03 Nikolai Lugansky

3. Variations on a Theme of Chopin (8+)
18:00 Konstantin Scherbakov
18:30 Zlata Chochieva
19:49 Konstantin Scherbakov

2. Piano Sonata No.2, 1913 version (8++)
20:26 Zoltán Kocsis
21:21 İdil Biret
22:08 John Browning

1. Piano Concerto No.3 (8++)
23:12 Vladimir Horowitz
23:40 Sergei Rachmaninov
24:20 Noriko Ogawa
24:58 Byron Janis

**HONORABLE MENTIONS**
Op.39 No.1, Op.39 No.3, Op.33 No.5, Op.16 No.4

**PATREON LINK**
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