So far I've learned and performed 12 of the Chopin études, and I've always thought without exception that Op.10 No.1 was the most unforgiving to perform, even more so than Op.25 No.11 (Winter Wind) and Op.10 No. read more
The chromatic patterns and arpeggios in the RH are some of Chopin's most difficult; The RH part has a lot of work for the 4th and 5th fingers - any weakness here can be problematic ; Given all that's going on in the RH, voicing the LH melody is hard. read more
Chopin's etudes were the first etudes that demanded more than technical difficulty, it demanded musical and emotional mastery to execute right. Most of the etudes are technically demanding, but some etudes, the main idea of them is to put the technicallity aside and focus about musicality. read more
Hardest (extremely demanding): 25/11, 25/6, 10/1, 10/7, 10/2. Depending on the pianist some etudes could be shifted around a group up or down, but I think this is quite a reasonable grouping based on personal experiences of learning the etudes. read more