Last piano lesson I took with me all three volumes of Beethoven sonatas (currently playing a movement from vol 1, list B movements are from vols 2 & 3), both volumes of Mozart sonatas (K332 and K309 are in different volumes) vol 1 of the complete Clementi sonatas and Vol 1 of the complete Schubert sonatas, as well as book 1 of TWTC, the Chopin Nocturne I've been working on and "Meet George Gershwin at the keyboard". I don't have the Haydn sonatas or I would have taken the relevant volumes of those too. Even so, that was a heavy lesson: I will be practicing some more when my back recovers!

My teacher & I went through all these 6 list B pieces and although all the pieces are beautiful, discarded them on various grounds until we had only one left. I had thought through in advance which ones I wanted to do and which one I would probably end up with. We ended up with the same choice: The Schubert & both Beethovens seem to be a level of difficulty harder than the others so they were all put to one side to learn after grade 8. Of the Clementi & the two Mozarts K309 seems to be "the road less travelled", so that is the one I'll be learning, at least for the moment.

My grade 8 pieces now look as though they will almost certainly be:

J S Bach - Prelude & Fugue in A flat, BWV 862, number 17 from book 1 of The Well Tempered Clavier
W A Mozart - Allegro con spirito: 1st movt from Sonata in C, K309
G Gershwin - Lisa, from "Meet George Gershwin at the keyboard"

The Bach and the Gershwin are already well advanced, just lots of polishing needed and the Mozart to learn. My original plan to learn 2 from each list and then narrow down has been vetoed by my teacher: Learn one from each and get it right, then you can learn the rest if you like for fun afterwards, seems to be her idea, with which in mind we are working towards sitting the exam in session B, in June - July. This means that I should have my result before going for a week at Chethams summer school "Adult Amateurs" in August. Much work to do!

Good luck!





I'm working on the F major mozart sonata, and my teacher wants me to learn the whole sonata before moving on to other pieces.

good luck!
at the moment i'm learning the sonata in F and the K309 by mozart, and i'll decide which one to do nearer the time.
for the C list, im doing the Nocturne by Grieg, but im not sure about the A list, but i will probably do the Bach duetto in G.
Im hoping to do the grade 8 in november, or maybe march, so i've got plenty of time.

Jacob.

The Gershwin was my first choice, but having tried it out for a few weeks it didn't really seem to be going anywhere , so i switched to the Chopin instead. Good luck with it

I was interested in the comment by Robodoc that he wanted to learn two pieces from each list, then choose one of each later. Way back in 1963 I did that for ALCM. Of course you have to have the practise time to give the 6 pieces equal consideration. Quite late on I switched from Mozart K309 to Beethoven Op10 No2. I just got bored with the Mozart !
Oddly the Bach A flat, Mozart K309 (complete sonata, that last movement is the hardest) and the Chopin F Minor Nocturne, are all in the currebt ABRSM Grade 8 list whilst they were in my ALCM syllabus in 1963. The Chopin was in fact my reserve C list piece.

Maybe its too much like hard work to learn 6 pieces, but it could be done for list C I think, as the pieces are quite different in character.

You have FAILED the repertoire choice.

A. The only correct choice from List A, is Scarlatti, Sonata in Am K175
B. The Mozart is a good choice, and for once the AB edition is not full of awkward and anti-musical fingerings (cf. K311), but list B is so good you can hardly make a bad choice
C. Sorry - wrong again. In the absence of anything by Skryabin (and with the unfortunate selections from the generally wonderful works of Prokofiev, Rachmaninov, and Ravel) acceptable choices are:

Albeniz Op. 71 No. 6
Brahms, Op. 116 No. 4
Chopin, Op. 55 No. 1
Debussy, Preludes 1 No. 9
Grieg, Op. 54 No. 5
Poulenc, Tocatta No. 3 from Trois Pieces

1/3 - must try harder


Better luck with the playing!


[fellow forumites - do not get upset by this post - Robodoc will understand!!]

Can anyone play that Poulenc Toccata at the right tempo ?
'Hymne' from the same set has been set for Grade * List C before and its managable, but the Toccata, no thanks !

I think the Gershwin is a brave choice

I'm doing a couple of pieces from the same book for a diploma, and out of all my pieces, the Gershwin for me is the trickiest to sight read

Mad Tom...

Anyone going to do Beethoven Op. 31 No. 1?

Or one of the last two great Haydn sonatas?

I think it are those two Haydn sonatas that are the hardest works on the entire Grade 8 list.

Yes, me. I'm also doing Scarlatti and Martinu.

Tom, I appreciate that the Martinu doesn't cut the Mad mustard, so is that 1/3 (Scarlatti is "the only correct choice for list A") or 2/3 ("list B is so good you can hardly make a bad choice") for my repertoire selection?

hence why not many people are doing them

Typical convert! Besides, there are two Scarlatti's on the list: Why this one and not the other?



Quite frankly I could cheerfully have picked anything from list B (or A, or C) but both my teacher and I felt that this was the one I would be able to play best by July. However, I'm not working from the AB edition: I have the Edition Peters (as you may remember - you've played from them!)



I agree, all wonderful music & just as list B was a close call between 6, so it was a close call between the Brahms, the Chopin, the Debussy and the Gershwin (& the Rachmaninov). I'll play you the Gershwin next time we meet & I hope you'll agree it has its sublime moments too, especially if you take the instruction "languidly" to heart (even in my hands).



Thank's Tom! Robodoc understands

Is the Beethoven Op.78 really so difficult? I have looked up the score in the internet (http://www.sheetmusicarchive.net/compositions_b/btsn78.pdf) and I don't find it very demanding. At least, it is far easier than the Op.31 No.1, except for its key signature (F sharp major!). As for the Mozart, my piano teacher said that it was not a good choice for a Grade 8 as the examiner required extremely subtle changes in your playing.

The first movement is easy enought to hit the right notes - but difficult to make a convincing, musical performance. Second movement seems easy when played slowly, but becomes tricky at speed.

Not convinced that Op 78 is easier then Op 31 No 1. Once you get over the initial hurdle of being able to play the thing in some fashion Op 31 No 1 is not so bad. The difficulties of interpreatation remain for both works. Even the Op 49 sonatas are hard to play convincingly. Easy to play after a fashion - hard to master or play well. Just like the piano itself.

Whatever you choose is going to be challengng in some way. Mozart is a great choice if subtle changes are your strength and extreme hand/finger gymnastics are not.

. . . Which is why we chose it.

The choice of piece for an exam should be dictated by 2 considerations: First; play something that you like. So far so good as that doesn't narrow the field much for me, but second; play what will give you the best chance of scoring high marks, which means playing to your strengths. This may mean playing something which is not necessarily your favourite from the list: Unless your tastes are impossibly narrow, this shouldn't mean too much of a compromise.

Choosing repertoire to stretch yourself and strengthen your weaknesses should be what you do between exams / grades, not in exams.



Incidental aside: I used the word "necessarily" in this post: All my life until a few weeks ago I have had problems spelling this word, being unsure how many c's and s's to use. Then someone (can't remember who, but thank you) on these forums wrote "one Collar, two Sleeves" and I have spelt it right first time ever since - until just now, when I got the c's and s's right but pressed an m instead of an n at the beginning! You can't win!!

Also, that Chopin Nocturne is butchered by everyone. It is funny how people put their performances on youtube of that piece. I would give each one a 0 / 25 on it, if I was the examiner. No balance between the two hands, wrong tempo, and everything wrong! Check out youtube and search for nocturne, op. 55 no. 1, and you will see what I mean!

The Poulenc is not hard. It just requires some good fingers, and is rather short.

Anyone going for the Shostakovitch?

The fugue requires a very good legato and a highly sensitive ear.

If I were the examiner, I would mark people as if they are in Leeds competition. I would only give distinction to the candidates that I feel are potential candidates to apply for one of the scholarships to the 4 Royal schools of Music that make up the associated board.

And I would be much more stringent on the performances of the pieces than on the scales or musicianship exercises.

I think that at a certain grade (about grade 8 and the diplomae exams), ABRSM should do away with scales and start requiring Chopin/Liszt/Rachmaninov etudes instead.

Er . . . they do. DipABRSM has no scales or arpeggios but the list does include Chopin's Novelles etudes. The remainder of the Chopin etudes, the Liszt concert studies and Paganini studies, and the Rachmininov etudes-tableaux are listed at LRSM.

Call me easily satisfied, but I didn't find much wrong with the performances by Vladimir Horowitz and Jorge Bolet. I'd give them each at least 20/25


Fortunately, if you were an ABRSM examiner, you wouldn't be allowed to.

The board decides what standards are to be applied, trains its examiners accordingly, and checks up that, so far as possible, the standards are being consistently applied right across the world.

If you want to apply your own standards you are going to have to set up you own exam board.

Any takers for the DipCdpiano27SM?






True, though one wonders what they are doing there alongside stuff like Haydn's Sonata No 50 in C (the first movement of which is set at Grade 8!)

It is like the difference between a four minute mile and a stroll round the garden

I have decided to do the Haydn E flat sonata. Despite everyone saying how easy the Mozart K. 322 I never got the hang of it even with months of playing. The Haydn is more straight-forward than it looks and it's quite repetitive. The main obstacle is getting it up to speed. List A I'm doing the Bach - never played a prelude+ fugue before and I'm finding it quite hard.
List C I'm doing Copland - straightforward + jazzy. I don't understand why people seem to prefer the Debussy/ Brahms/ Chopin/ other recent classical composer after playing classical music in both lists A + B. I find a jazzy piece makes more interesting playing and contrast.

I hope you were attempting K322 rather than K622 - K622 is on the Grade VIII clarinet syllabus, not piano! Alternatively, this could explain some of your difficulties

I have said this before, and you may find it difficult to believe, but I played the first movement of K332 for Grade 4 (L.C.M) in about 1958. Its ridiculously easy for Grade 8 .
I know it was grade 4 because I can remember what I played for grades 5 (Beethoven Op 79 3rd mvmt)and 6 (Beethoven Op 10 No3 second mvmt), and I never took a grade 7 or 8 before going to ALCM.
Still what some find easy , others find difficult. I cant play Golliwogs Cakewalk for toffee, or the E Minor Chopin waltz.!

It does seem that pieces are getting shorter and less technically demanding in the higher grades than they were 30+ years ago, but perhaps they are expected to be played properly these days, rather than struggled through. K332 is another of those easy to play badly, difficult to play well, pieces. Similarly you might be able to give some sort of fluent rendition of Beethoven Op 79 3rd movement at Grade 5, but to play it truly well is another matter. There is the switch from triplets to 4 in a bar in the accompaniment, the episode of fast arpeggios, and the small matter of triplet groups with the first note in the RH missing played against 4 semiquavers in the left hand. And then there are intellectual problems. If you are playing the whole sonata you need to bring out its thematic relationships to the first two movements.

I could fill a book with the titles of pieces I find too difficult - starting with almost everything by Liszt, adding much of Brahms, then moving on through the Scriabin sonatas, and all the favourite virtuoso pieces like Islamei, Gaspard de la Nuit, Debussy's etudes ... and has anyone looked at Sorabji's scores - aaargh.

However I can play Golliwog's cakewalk, and to date I am the only pianist I know (all famous names included) that actually obeys Debussys detailed instructions for dynamics and touch'!

<----- Hungarian Rhapsody 1.75

Maybe because some of us prefer Chopin/Debussy/Brahms to jazz
I would love to be able to play a jazzy piece instead of one of the A or B pieces, but with the sylabus as it is, if i want to play the chopin nocturne, i can't play a jazzy piece too

To be honest, I find this years syllabus really bad, and there's not much choice of really nice pieces.

For list B i'm doing the Haydn sonata in C which is a good enjoyable piece.

But playing through the list A pieces i found nothing which really caught my ear

From list C the Chopin Nocturne was nice...but I don't want to play a piece which every other grade 8 student will be playing - which i'm guessing they will as it's a very nice piece.

It is amazing how opinions can differ. I thought it was fantastic list - one of the best the AB has ever done.
I would happily play any of the pieces on list A and especially anything from list B which is especially magnificent. There are a couple of things I don't especially like in list C, and a few that I have not heard, but from the rest I would still be spoiled for choice

Indeed - with a deceptively tricky LH part starting in bar 10!

Perhaps that is the problem. Maybe you should listen to some recordings of polished performances for better inspiration.

Well ... of the pieces I know I think the Rachmaninoff Prelude was composed on one of his off-days, but the pieces by Prokofiev, Ravel, Albeniz, Debussy, Grieg, and Poulenc are all attractive, and I suspect they are all a lot less popular than the Chopin.

<--- wishing he was doing Grade 8 again

Not meaning to blow my own horn here, but I can sight read pretty well, and sight reading the pieces from the grade 8 anthology were pretty easy. my teacher did play through some of them as well, but I think i'm just really fussy when it comes to pieces.

As long as it's got like...a catchy tune I'll love it and want to play it. Anything to me which sounds like just a bunch of notes with no definitive motif or tune...I just get bored in easily. The pieces I like tend to be the ones which you'll whistle for a couple of days after hearing them or you'll have them running around your head and you'll want to go and learn it yourself.

But you will anyway!! No problem. Just blow your own horn and skip the fake apology.

If you can sight read the grade 8 list well enough to know how the pieces will sound after a few months hard work then you are not a potential Grade 8 pianist, you are LRSM standard or beyond.


... but those are the very ones that often turn out to have tunes and themes after all ... when you hear them played by a top class concert pianist.

You're kidding??


Hear hear: I had to pick from the Bach, either Scarlatti or the Shostakovitch from list A, anything except the Haydn from the B list (only because I don't have the music) from which the Schubert is really lovely and any one from about 10 of the C list


Tom Forgot to mention the Gershwin.


Virtually every piece in all 3 lists has a "catchy tune".

On reflection I think this poster is trolling, and you shouldn't feed trolls. end of post.

If you hear a bunch of notes with no melody that could be down to the way you are sight reading them? There's a skll in being able to bring out a melody from what at first might look like a random series of notes. Say you are in 6/8 time, but only the 1st and 4th quavers in the right hand are actually part of the melody. You could sight read it at all the same volume and with the same weight given to each note, and miss it entirely.

It's worth exploring different styles as you don't know what you could be missing out on - not everything needs to end with a big bang to let you know when to clap

I bought the grade 8 CD out of curiousity, and found the pieces all very attractive! If I were doing grade 8 again, I'd choose the Scarlatti Sonata in E from the List A alternatives, Mozart K309 for List B, and the Poulenc toccata for List C.

I've played Mozart Sonata in D, K311 for my ATCL recital, and K309 is relatively much easier. I'm taking ATCL performance this May, so and I managed the 1st movt of K309 in 2 weeks, compared to nearly 2 months for the K311.

I also found the Clementi to be very nice! I thought the Clementi piece would be happy and straightforward, with a happy emotion to it. This one has altered my perception of Clementi's style. The Haydns are beautiful too. But really quite difficult... I've only known of 1 friend who did the Hob XVI no. 50 and another who played no. 52.

I thought List A was rather boring, though... I was hoping for some virtuosic keyboard pieces by Handel... the Scarlattis are the only List A pieces that appeal to me.

The Poulenc is lovely for List C. My friend bought me the Trois Pieces as my birthday present, and I've tried them all (as an ATCL selection). I'd definitely play the Toccata if I were taking grade 8. Although I feel it's the hardest one for List C. If I'm not wrong, it's also on the DipABRSM piano list.

but I really enjoy Poulenc's stuff. After playing his novelettes no. 1 & 2 for my recital, my friend in my A level music class has bought his own copy of the novelettes and is playing them for A levels as well. His humoresque and villageoises are 2 of his fantastic compositions that are rarely performed, or even heard of.

I know I can't sight read them to the standard at which I could play them after learning them properly, but even after youtubing some of them and asking my teacher to play others, I still just didn't find many of them that appealing. I went back to them and replayed through the A list, (those that are in my anthology book, which has 6 of list A, all of B and 5 from C), and they did sound more appealing than before...but still nothing to really catch my ear even with listening to proper recordings. (And yes my sight reading was a far cry from the videos I watched and my piano teacher.)

I guess I just....have odd tastes.

I agree with ArchedEdge to a point, in that, after listening to the CD, there wasn't really anything on the A list that particularly caught my eye. I think the problem was that they were all a bit too similar, so it made it very hard to choose between, rather than i didn't like any of them though. For list C, I felt i was spoilt for choice, so started by playing several and gradually refining my selection as i learned them, until i was left with just the chopin.

What? He had off days?!
And still wrote like that?!

i'm reacting exactly the same way! how is it even possible??

To be more accurate, I don't like this Prelude much (though I do like many other Rachmaninoff compositions). Maybe because when I play it it sounds rubbish ... which with typical arrogance I blame on the composer rather than my own shortcomings. Or maybe it really is not up to the standard of the rest of his output.

Do you want ot hear some real heresy? Bethoven's piano sonatas are, I believe, the finest artistic creation of Western Civilisation. But I think some of his Bagatelles are naff.

And there was me thinking you thought all Beethoven was marvelous!

To the Naff stuff he wrote you can add the incidental music to Faust - I heard it once on radio 3 many years ago and was never tempted to try again! (Then again, when set against the staged play it may be that it is perfect!)

I'm doing the scarlatti sonata in E, kp.46
mozart sonata in c
and if the silver bird could speak by eleanor alberga.

how hard are the scales? there are so many...........

They're easy . . .

. . . if you can do them!

If you can't then there is no short cut to lots of well directed and appropriate practice (i.e. not just mindless repetition) and if you count staccato and legato as separate then I make it 174 scales & arpeggios.

I'm writing this in a break between my scales & arpeggios & my piece work. I'm currently having a monster push on scales so I'm doing all the awkward ones every day. For me at the moment that is all the legato 3rds, all the 2nd inversion arpeggios, all the scales in 6ths, the dominant 7ths of B and F sharp, diminished 7ths starting on B flat and E flat, melodic minor scales on B and F, C sharp minor in 3rds and the black note arpeggios (E flat minor, F sharp major, all inversions). For each one I can move on if I get it right first time or when I can play it at the right speed without a significant mistake 4 times in a row (after breaking it down and correcting the reason why I couldn't play it right first time). At the end of all that I do a short random session, then take a break (now).

This morning this took a shade over 2 hours: That's why I described it as a monster! However, it is getting less each day as practice pays dividends.

Now for Mozart. I've got the notes more or less secure by now so the aims for practice this week are: Even tempo (no slowing up for hard bits or accelerating for semiquaver sections - use a metronome for suspect sections), accurate articulation and dynamics (if it says F keep it F until it says otherwise - lots of contrast!), accurate jumps (right technique) and appropriate pedalling (not easy, that last one - there is none marked in my edition!). There's another 2 hours work a day! (not including the Bach, the Gershwin, etc.)

I'm doing the Mozart in F (B), Shostakovich Prelude and Fugue in A (A) and Chopin Nocturne in F minor ©. I think that lists B and C are incredibly good (there are at least five I wanted to do on list C) but find A impossible. I have chosen the shostakovich since I love it so much and have done the prelude, but the fugue seems very daunting. I've just seen in it's on the LRSM list. As for scales, I havn't even started worrying about them yet, once I can play the pieces, I can refine them whilst workin on the scales.

Chopin is done and the only bit in the Mozart that I find really hard is the contrary motion involved in doing the trills (the section which comes at th end, and once before). Has anyone got any tips for being able to play two agains three (or four against six in this case )

I'm about to start grade 8 in lessons and wondered what people thought of this programme

A list

Mendelssohn: prelude and fugue in D (I was going to do the scarlatti in A minor but two sonatas in a row wouldn't be too good for the fingers!)

B-list

Haydn: sonata in Eb 1st movement

C-list

Copland: Jazzy

That looks good, though personally I'd have preferred to put Bach or Scarlatti in as 'A'

I thought about doing the scarlatti but the two sonatas wouldn't contrast as much and I wanted do something from the romantic period. Also I've studied probably too much Bach this year so I didn't want to be put off by an exam piece.

I didn't think I'd like the haydn but it reminds me of Beethovens' music which I actually love to play. I think the copland is a nice follow up from haydns sonata.

when the new syllabus comes out will the new set of scales/sight reading spec. tests be required for the current (2007/08) grade 8 or will the old ones remain.

I like it. However, remember that at grade level, even grade 8, you are not marked on the program as a whole but each piece is marked on it's own merits. For each list you should be choosing the piece that you and your teacher thinks gives the best chance of the highest marks. What you might like, what might be a technical challenge, what might be fun are all important but are frankly secondary to the key question: "What will get the best mark?" If each of these pieces will get you the best marks for the list in which then they are fine.

If it really was a requirement to include a Bach or Scarlatti on list A then Mendelssohn wouldn't be an option: As it is I think that half of all candidates will be playing Bach in list A (as I am) and half the rest Scarlatti, so Mendelssohn is likely to be a refreshing (and therefore good) choice for the poor examiner.

I'm doing it for my own merit and therefore I want to pick pieces which I enjoy and an audience in a real world situation will enjoy (in this case the examiner). Are you suggesting that candidates should pick what their teacher suggests not what they want to play in order to get a distinction/merit? I've always picked my pieces freely and have been given positive feedback on the overall performance of the pieces

Jason, it's good that you're thinking in terms of a complete programme, and what works with what, but this doesn't matter for Grade exams - it's only when it comes to the diploma syllabus that it counts. Play the pieces you like best.

I've been learning the Scarlatti from list A, but now I'm over the initial shock of the Bach being a four (count 'em!) part fugue, I realise it's not as scary as I originally thought.


If you like playing Beethoven, play some! Look at the complete syllabus (not just the works in the selected pieces book) and you'll see that there are movements from a couple of the sonatas on the repertoire list.


Perhaps someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm fairly sure that if you take an exam in 2009 you have to meet the scale requirements for 2009, even if you're using the 2007/08 syllabus. Added incentive to get my act together and take the exam this year not next!

I am playing beethoven I'm in the process of learning the moonlight sonata, and then maybe do pathetique.

Unless you need a good score for a particular purpose (e.g. to get into a university) I disagree with this point of view. For myself the most important factors are the enjoyment of playing a piece, and how learning a particular piece will aid my overall musical progress. I view the exams as a tool and definitely not an end in themselves.

I'm already in uni. so I don't need grade 8 at all but I'm only doing the exam to monitor progress so later on I can do the diploma.