Where Technique Becomes Art
Grade 7 — The Concert Repertoire Begins
Grade 7 sits at the threshold of the full concert repertoire. The pieces — Bach Sinfonias, early major Beethoven, Romantic character pieces, Scarlatti sonatas — are works that professional musicians perform. Arriving here technically is not enough: the examiner, and any audience, is listening for a point of view. What does this music mean? What are you trying to say with it? Interpretive commitment is the defining skill at this level. Have an opinion and play it.
Pieces in this plan
Handel's capriccios are free-form pieces with contrasting sections — fast and brilliant alternating with slower, more reflective passages. An excellent bridge into the Sinfonia repertoire.
Three completely independent voices running simultaneously throughout. This is the definitive polyphonic challenge at Grade 7 level — one of the most intense pieces in the keyboard repertoire.
The second Sinfonia on this plan — a benchmark piece. The G minor has a flowing, chromatic character quite different from the F minor. If the F minor Sinfonia felt manageable, this one will push you further.
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A brilliantly idiomatic Scarlatti sonata with fast repeated notes and hand crossings — the hallmarks of his keyboard style at its most exciting.
Near the end of Schumann's Kinderscenen — quiet, inward, and deeply poetic. One of those small pieces that demands enormous musicality.
Moszkowski's études are technically brilliant and genuinely musical. This A minor étude demands fast, even passage work and physical stamina.
One of the most beautiful piano pieces ever written. Warm, nostalgic, and deeply personal — Brahms wrote the late Op. 118 pieces in his sixties as a kind of intimate musical diary.
A major early Beethoven sonata — powerful, dramatic, and technically demanding. The C minor key signals his most serious emotional territory.
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