This cadenza is a contemporary reinterpretation of the solo section for Beethoven's third piano concerto. It utilizes expanded pianistic textures characteristic of 21st-century composition.
Students must navigate wide leaps and demanding, complex harmonic configurations that require a high degree of hand flexibility.
Comparable difficulty and character — good candidates for what to learn next.
Cadenza to Beethoven’s third piano concerto is rated Henle level 8 of 9 — concert repertoire, roughly diploma level.
You should be comfortable at Henle level 8 — meaning you can already play level 7–8 pieces cleanly. Learning it one level early is possible as a stretch piece, but more than that usually leads to months of frustration.
A typical performance of Cadenza to Beethoven’s third piano concerto lasts about 3 minutes.
Cadenza to Beethoven’s third piano concerto is available as free public-domain sheet music on IMSLP — the score is linked directly from this page.
Pieces at a comparable difficulty and character include Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 in C-sharp minor by Franz Liszt, Bourrée fantasque by Emmanuel Chabrier, Gaspard de la nuit by Maurice Ravel — see the full similar-pieces list on this page.