Top 9 Hardest Ravel Pieces for Piano

Compared to his contemporaries, Ravel didn’t leave a whole lot of piano music (hence why this list only goes up to 9), but the piano music he did leave behind is not only very difficult but some of the greatest virtuoso writing for the instrument. Building off of the pianistic traditions of Liszt and Schumann, he added an Impressionistic flair as well as elements of jazz and neoclassicism in order to create one of the truly eclectic voices of the early 20th century. Ravel shares many of the same technical requirements as Debussy—a subtle touch, tone painting, perfect pedaling, arpeggios galore—but in his hardest works Ravel adds technical difficulties that are bordering on the absurd. A number of his works contain glissandos that can be only categorized as extreme sports; thirds, fourths, octaves, black/white keys all must be learned in glissando form if one is to play the harder Ravel pieces. Do you struggle with fast and consistent repeated notes (or maybe your piano does)? Then best of luck with works like the Toccata, Alborada del gracioso, Gaspard de la Nuit.... And despite the celebrated difficulty of works like Scarbo, some posit that his slow pieces are the true test of a pianist’s technical mastery and mental willpower. If your Le Gibet doesn’t sound exactly like the “corpse of the hanged one that is reddened by the setting sun“, then you might be doing something wrong. 9. Jeux d’eau (7) 0:00 György Cziffra 0:33 Yvonne Lefébure 8. Sonatine (7 ) 1:16 Alfred Cortot 1:41 Walter Gieseking 2:08 Abbey Simon 7. Piano Concerto in G (7 ) 2:27 Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli 2:57 Marguerite Long 3:54 Monique Haas 6. Le Tombeau de Couperin (7 ) 4:28 Jean-Yves Thibaudet 5:07 Samson François 5. Left Hand Concerto (8) 6:01 Jacques Février 6:24 Robert Casadesus 7:28 Samson François 4. Fragments Symphoniques from Daphnis et Chloé (8) 8:33 Florian Uhlig 9:19 Florian Uhlig 3. Miroirs (8 ) 9:44 Vlado Perlemuter 10:10 Abbey Simon 10:36 Louis Lortie 11:07 Sviatoslav Richter 2. La Valse (8 , or 8 depending on how much of it you play) 11:37 Seong-Jin Cho 12:05 David Fung 1. Gaspard de la Nuit (8 ) 13:09 Minoru Nojima 14:07 Ivo Pogorelich 14:42 Martha Argerich Honorable mentions: Nothing playing the entire Valses nobles et sentimentales is a bit of an achievement? The Menuet antique (one of my favorite pieces) isn’t easy but isn’t quite virtuoso level either.