10 hardest violin pieces to play

From caprices to partitas, tightropes to labyrinths, you’re about to confront some of the most difficult pieces of violin music imaginable.

The violin is far from the easiest instrument to play. It can take a great deal of practice before a player even achieves a smooth, clean tone. And with that in mind, the journey a player has to take before being able to wrestle with these pieces really comes into perspective.

Perhaps you’re aiming to reach this level one day, or maybe you’re just curious as to how far violins and their players can be pushed. Whichever camp you’re in, you’ll find out just what makes this music so hard to play. But no matter how high composers set the bar, there’s always a violinist out there that will reach it.
 

Most difficult violin pieces of all time
 

1. Caprice No. 24 by Niccolò Paganini
2. Les caquets by Joseph Bologne
3. Violin Sonata No. 9 by Ludwig van Beethoven
4. Dancer on the Tightrope by Sofia Gubaidulina
5. Nocturne by Kaija Saariaho
6. Sonata for Solo Violin by Béla Bartók
7. La joie de la souffrance by Qigang Chen
8. Partita No. 2 by Johann Sebastian Bach
9. par.ti.ta by Lera Auerbach
10. Violin Concerto No. 12 by Pietro Locatelli

1. Caprice No. 24 by Niccolò Paganini

There’s really only one person that can open this list. Paganini, the name forever bound to the very concept of a violin virtuoso. No one made a bigger name for themselves in their day, and no one has been hyped in posterity quite as much. But, more than being just a bewildering performer, he was an equally stunning composer.

Only by writing music that broke right through the perceived boundaries of violin-playing could he, in performance, change the way people thought about the instrument. These achievements centre on his 24 caprices, which over 200 years later still represent the pinnacle of the violin repertoire, pushing players to the limits of their technical ability.

Paganini brought everything for the final instalment in the set - blistering pace, huge arpeggios, spiccato runs, parallel triple stopping... It simply doesn’t get any harder. The 24th caprice is arguably the most influential as well, having inspired variations on its iconic theme by composers such as Johannes Brahms and Sergei Rachmaninoff.

2. Les caquets by Joseph Bologne

Born on the Caribbean island of Basse-Terre, Joseph Bologne - also known as Chevalier de Saint-Georges - rose to the highest echelons of French society in the late 18th century. Taking Paris by storm as a musician of remarkable skill, Bologne became the first major classical composer of African descent. 

Like Paganini, Bologne was a virtuoso player and an exceptional composer. Few, if any works capture his vast ability and his ingenious creativity better than Les caquets, for violin and piano. Featuring endless rapid runs and awkward, double-stopped string-skipping, this piece also calls for nothing less than perfect technique.

The incessant chatter of the ‘gossips’ alluded to in the title is brought to life by the substantial staccato passages, which also happen to be difficult to play at tempo. nkoda’s Max Eschig edition is arranged by Marius Casadesus, who according to some actually had a hand in composing it. Either way, this piece remains firmly tied to Bologne’s legacy.

3. Violin Sonata No. 9 by Ludwig van Beethoven

Beethoven’s Violin Sonata in A major, Op. 47. Far better known by the name that strikes fear into the hearts of violinists: the ‘Kreutzer Sonata’. It’s a towering achievement in violin composition, and probably the violin work that’s most definitive of the sonata genre.

The nickname honours one of the great players of the 19th century: Rodolphe Kreutzer. He was actually the sonata’s dedicatee, but he was so shocked by its musical intensity that he declined to ever play it. Unusually long for a sonata, its three movements last over 40 minutes. It’s one of the great tests of playing stamina in the canon.

Tireless fingers aren’t all the piece demands, though. Quadruple stopping calls for careful interpretation and faultless fingerwork. Wide and quick string-skipping requires ultimate precision. And then there are countless passages that are plainly too fast. Check out this deft arrangement for string quartet, in which two violinists reasonably share the burden.

4. Dancer on the Tightrope by Sofia Gubaidulina

Tatar-Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina is responsible for some of the most pioneering music of the late 20th century. Her radical musical vision is frequently channelled through unconventional instrumental ensembles, but this work, for the classic violin-piano combo, shows that she’s just as comfortable giving traditional setups a contemporary makeover. 

Dancer on the Tightrope, composed in 1993, sees Gubaidulina exploring the idea of risk. Depicting the balancing act of a tightrope-walker through sound, she aims to capture the dangerous and exhilarating thrill of being so close to the unknown. The music is fragile and unpredictable, complex and alive. 

In contrast with the technical demands of a piece like Paganini’s caprice, Dancer tests the player’s ability to interpret and express, sculpt sound and control colour. Near the end, the music shifts from fffff to piano within the space of a bar, before fading away with light tremolo harmonics. This is a subtler virtuosity, but no less challenging. 

5. Nocturne by Kaija Saariaho

Saariaho wrote Nocturne for solo violin in 1994. She dedicated it to the memory of Polish composer Witold Lutosławski, who passed away the same year. Fittingly, Saariaho infuses her composition with the same dynamism and adventurousness that marked the work of her elder colleague. 

And yet, it’s marked by the delicacy and lyricism that you’d expect of the nocturne form. Although a relatively compact work at six minutes long, Nocturne still spans the breadth of the violin’s possibilities. To play it, a violinist needs to exercise the full range of skills that they will have fine-tuned after their countless hours of practice.

Because playing more than one note at a time isn’t easy, texture is a parameter that isn’t always fully exploited in violin music. Not so in Nocturne, where it’s a defining feature. And Saariaho doesn’t merely add notes to bolster or harmonise. By layering her musical ideas, she instils depth and dimensionality that's rarely heard in music for the instrument.

6. Sonata for Solo Violin by Béla Bartók

Jumping to the other end of the violin-playing spectrum, Bartók actually makes it on to our easy violin songs list, courtesy of his accessible Tavern Song. But he’s as capable of writing music for the best players in the world as he is for those at the very start of their journey - the Sonata for Solo Violin proves it.

One of the finest violinists of the 20th century, Yehudi Menuhin commissioned it from Bartók in 1943. As it first appeared, parts of it were too hard even for Menuhin, so the composer agreed to make changes before it was premiered in its final form. But he left in the passages involving left-hand pizzicato executed alongside a separate bowed melody.

Returning to the topic of texture in violin music, there’s even a fugue in the second movement. The player has to manage four distinct moving parts at once. To perform it is to rise to one of the truly great challenges of the violin repertoire. If you feel you have to look at the score to believe that, you wouldn’t be the first. 

7. La joie de la souffrance by Qigang Chen

La joie de la souffrance is an awesome work for solo violin and orchestra, completed by Chen in 2018. The title translates as ‘the joy of suffering’. Hopefully violinists that are bold enough to take this piece on, through the suffering its obstacles bring, ultimately find joy in playing it. 

The title really refers to the moods that the performer must bring to life in the piece, and these are indicated through clear performance instructions in the score. If a violinist is to successfully realise the work according to Chen’s vision, they will have to imbue the music with these through expression in their playing.

Coupled with these interpretative difficulties are the severe technical demands. Rapid multiple stopping, frequent changes in time signature, and extended passages of awkward rhythmic units feature prominently. Altogether, these characteristics make La joie a huge challenge to master. 

8. Partita No. 2 by Johann Sebastian Bach

Within Bach’s vast body of work, the cycle of six sonatas and partitas for solo violin have a very special place. In fact, they’re a pillar of the entire violin repertoire. Most concert violinists turn their hand to these works at some point, and many of them would agree that the second in D minor, BWV 1004, stands out as especially hard. 

Standing out among the five movements that make up the piece in turn, is the Chaconne that concludes the work. Larger than the previous four movements combined, it’s seen as the high-water mark of Baroque violin music. Comprising over 60 variations on a single theme, only the most accomplished players can breathe life into its rich intricacies.

The Chaconne has won major plaudits in the violin world not only for its difficulty but also for its beauty and ingenuity. Menuhin himself called it ‘the greatest structure for solo violin that exists’. For violinist Joshua Bell, it’s one history’s ‘greatest achievements’.

9. par.ti.ta by Lera Auerbach

This is a partita one-two. If Bach’s work helped to define the partita form, Lera Auerbach’s par.ti.ta served to deconstruct it almost three hundred years later. From the title itself to the music’s very building-blocks, her composition drags all aspects of this time-honoured form into the 21st century.

Auerbach expands the partita framework to include ten diverse movements. Offering phrases of tenderness, passages of intensity, and everything in between, it asks players to bring versatility to the table. The eighth movement features a rare, deadly combination of slow tempo and very high-pitched material. Pitching has to be absolutely impeccable. 

Alongside her outstanding performances as a pianist, Auerbach has composed prolifically in a wide range of classical genres. Her official website describes her as a ‘renaissance artist for modern times’ and in her innovative handling of par.ti.ta, it’s clear to see why she’s earned that status. 

10. Violin Concerto No. 12 by Pietro Locatelli

Drawn from L’arte del violino, a monumental work consisting of no fewer than twelve violin concertos, this piece seems to have the most fearsome reputation going. In truth, each of the concertos is hugely difficult to play, but everyone hones in on the twelfth as the most painful to come to terms with.

It’s not hard to see why. In an inscription that Locatelli himself wrote on the score, he nicknamed the piece ‘il labirinto armonico’ (the harmonic labyrinth), cruelly adding that it’s ‘easy to enter; difficult to escape’. It contains passages of such density that players can quite literally become completely lost in the music.

These passages are the infamous caprices. Each concerto contains caprice sections in the outer movements, a kind of written-out cadenza that appears to exist solely to showcase virtuosity, and No. 12’s are simply on another level. It’s remarkable to think that music of this kind was being written and played in the Baroque era. 

Your next steps for violin music

This is just the top ten. There’s a whole world of impenetrable violin music out there, and you can find a lot of it on nkoda. Check out the advanced titles in our collection of violin sheet music.

Or you can read about the great violinists in history who have taken on and mastered this repertoire. You’ll be able to take your place alongside them once you’ve worked your way through nkoda’s collection and tackled the pieces we’ve explored here.

If, on the other hand, you're done with difficult music and feel like retreating back to first position, there’s always the easy violin songs guide that we mentioned earlier. Becoming an amazing player might seem like a long way away, but every journey has its first steps, and where violin-playing’s concerned, you’ll find some ideal beginnings there.