I got hold of a score of Janacek's Sinfonietta today and I followed it whilst listening to a CD (Abbado and Berlin Phil). I was quite amazed at some of the difficult things the players have to do, such as repeated rhythms with the odd bar in 13/8 just to put you off and rapid scales in C flat major on the woodwind. There were two moments in particular: the clarinets at the beginning of the second movement (especially the second clarinet, which doesn't lie well under the fingers at all) and the bass clarinet playing a quick alternating low E flat and A flat, both of which have to be played with the little finger of the right hand jumping from one key to another, unless I've overlooked something obvious. My little finger just couldn't move that quickly. Then rapid triplets on clarinets and flutes. I should add that it was all played flawlessly.

I know that practice is the only way but I sometimes look at some things and think I would never be able to play it no matter how much I practised. I suppose we all have natural limits and you pros at there must be giving a weary sigh at my naivety by this stage.

But anyway, in a conversation with my fellow amateurs recently, they thought that the music of Richard Strauss was difficult. So I'm asking which composers or pieces of orchestral music are the most difficult to play. Or do all top pros take it all in their stride. I would rather leave out experimental composers and avant garde. Please try to stick to more standard repertoire.

Well, the opening of S's Don Juan is notoriously difficult from an ensemble perspective. But shouldn't we talking about pieces rather than composers? Balakirev's 'Islamey' was, I think, considered the hardest piano piece ever - until Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit came along. But these represent a different type of pianistic athleticism to, let's say, Finnissy's. We're heading for another discussion about the relative merits of virtuosity here, and its nature, but that might be fun in this context!

Loads of musicians, from a totally different perspective, would say Mozart is the 'hardest to play'...

After I'd started this, I suddenly thought that no one might want to admit to finding anything difficult, but it seems all right so far. Of course anyone is free to suggest anything, but I was thinking of more standard fare. I suppose many composers, including Beethoven, have been considered difficult at first. I take the point about Mozart being the hardest of all, but I think he did take into account the characteristics of instruments, especially the clarinet, and his singers, and try to exploit their strengths.

I've heard quite a few string players say that Richard Strauss is amongst the hardest orchestral stuff to play in the standard repertoire. Bellini (especially Norma) always sounds as if it's ferociously hard for singers. For pianists, leaving aside contemporary music (the difficulties are generally of a different nature - I'd say a handful of works by Xenakis Finnissy, Barrett, Barlow, Globokar and a few others constitute about as hard as it gets), the Chopin-Godowsky Etudes are what I would call amongst the most taxing. A few things of Alkan, but that's pianistic in a different way (Godowsky is pianistic but much more spidery to play!). A few things of Liszt (just a few), like the fantasies on Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia (little known, but utterly crazy), the earlier versions of the Transcendental and Paganini Etudes, as well as more obviously Feux Follets are pretty hair-raising. Some Beethoven can indeed be very hard, as can some Chopin. Rachmaninov also comes into the 'spidery' category at times. Brahms's Second Piano Concerto is one of the harder of the standard repertoire, I would say, also Prokofiev's Second. Similarly, I imagine that Brahms's Violin Concerto is considerably harder than more obviously ostentatious ones, including that of Tchaikovsky - violinists, any thoughts?

(now I recall a truly pointless flame-war on r.m.c.r. as to whether you should transliterate as 'Rachmaninov/Prokofiev' or 'Rachmaninoff/Prokofieff'!)

The amateur orchestra that I used to play timps and percussion in made pretty good fist of Holst's Planets and of the Rite of Spring, so neither of those pieces seems to be nearly as "difficult" as they sound. On the other hand, it made a right dog's breakfast of Beethoven's Fifth. Technically, I'd say that Beethoven isn't all that hard - but he demands to be played with a precision that amateurs simply cannot command.

As for Islamey, I find it fairly easy...

But then, I have a pianola 

It's strange, on another forum I vist, they are trying to rate the level of difficulty of Liszt's Transcendental Studies.  It seems to be a tie between nos.4 (Mazeppa) and 12 (Chasse neige) as to which is the hardest.  Personally, I find 4 the hardest and no.12 one of the easier ones.   

All of which goes to further illustrate my (personal) opinion that you cannot really rank pieces in order of difficulty as we all have different strengths and weaknesses as performers.

   ///////////////////<<<<<<<<<<<<<Do you think that "Islamey" is harder than almost any piece by Sorabji? (Esp. the "Opus Clavicembalisticum")

This matches my experience of recently hearing a concert by the local youth orchestra in which my daughter plays - they had a fairly reasonable shot at Dvorak's Eighth and a suite of dances by Arnold (sorry, can't remember which and Arnold is a bit of a personal blind spot anyway) but came seriously unstuck accompanying a concerto by Danzi.  My feeling at the time was that what sank them was an inability to phrase in the classical style, especially in the strings, rather than any particular shortcomings - although naturally the lack of phrasing showed up all the technical glitches.  Is this partly because kids - even those who play in youth orchestras, or who follow the mix and match GCSE syllabus (this week serialism, next week minimalism) - simply don't hear much music in this style?