Hardest Band Piece You've Ever Played?

[hsbandnerd212]

With another marching season in the books for the vast majority of Texas high school bands, concert band season is upon us (with UIL Concert/Sightreading around the corner)! This makes me wonder what are some of the hardest full band pieces that people have ever played.

Here are some starter questions to consider:

1. What is the hardest piece(s) of band music you've ever played? What instrument(s) did you play it on?

2. Did you play the piece(s) in high school? College? Or marching band (*cough* Hebron)?

3. What made the piece(s) hard for YOU? What made it hard for the whole ensemble? How was your part significantly harder (or easier) than other parts in the ensemble?

4. Was the piece(s) musically difficult? Technically difficult? Or both? What made it that way?

Feel free to link example videos as well!

[WanderingTraveler]

1. What is the hardest piece(s) of band music you've ever played? What instrument(s) did you play it on? 100% Dionysiaques on Clarinet

2. Did you play the piece(s) in high school? College? High School Baylor Summer Camp & again in College

3. What made the piece(s) hard for YOU? What made it hard for the whole ensemble? How was your part significantly harder (or easier) than other parts in the ensemble? One of the most unnatural jumble of notes on a page I have ever seen. No fundamentals, scales, etc could have prepared me for how absolutely random the runs in this piece were. I attached a picture of a random 2 bar segment for reference. Pretty sure the whole ensemble was on the same page, but it came together for the concert. Combined with how ridiculously fast this piece was, its hard to find places to blink. 

4. Was the piece(s) musically difficult? Technically difficult? Or both? What made it that way? Technically, some tuning stuff with weird instrumentation in sections, but overall just straight technical.

[SaltySynth]

1 hour ago, hsbandnerd212 said:

With another marching season in the books for the vast majority of Texas high school bands, concert band season is upon us (with UIL Concert/Sightreading around the corner)! This makes me wonder what are some of the hardest full band pieces that people have ever played.

Here are some starter questions to consider:

1. What is the hardest piece(s) of band music you've ever played? What instrument(s) did you play it on?

2. Did you play the piece(s) in high school? College? Or marching band (*cough* Hebron)?

3. What made the piece(s) hard for YOU? What made it hard for the whole ensemble? How was your part significantly harder (or easier) than other parts in the ensemble?

4. Was the piece(s) musically difficult? Technically difficult? Or both? What made it that way?

Feel free to link example videos as well!

Agean Festival Overture on bassoon.

High School

The piece moves between so many times signatures almost every 4 bars and it never quite felt settled(even in recordings). The bassoons had multiple solos and many moments where it was only me and my 2 bassoon friends playing. Over all we kind of had an easy part besides how exposed our parts were.

The pieces was about 12 minutes long, technically difficult, and muscly difficult. The main highlight of the piece is the 2 minutes clarinet cadenza (solo) that was played so well by one of my friends. Besides the solos and the difficulty of the pieces, over all it was fun and I enjoyed it even though it was way above my skill level. I look forward to playing it in the future.

[hsbandnerd212]

20 minutes ago, WanderingTraveler said:

1. What is the hardest piece(s) of band music you've ever played? What instrument(s) did you play it on? 100% Dionysiaques on Clarinet

So real. I never played this piece myself, but I heard it performed in college and was dumbfounded by the technique in it.
Also, you find a full score of it on IMSLP. The amount of black on some of the pages is wild, to say the least.

[hsbandnerd212]

Technique-wise, it's a tie between Smetana Fanfare by Karel Husa and Asphalt Cocktail by John Mackey. I played both on 1st Bb Clarinet in college.

For all clarinets parts (and I think all woodwind parts), Smetana Fanfare just had a boatload of tongued sextuplets at quarter note = 88-96ish. The most infamous passage contains tongued sextuplets that have awkward fingerings running between the altissimo and upper middle registers. I could tongue not that fast for the LIFE of me. 😭 I'm sure the rest of the woodwinds (minus flutes and piccolo) were struggling with those tutti sextuplets. Brass might have been chilling with this piece, IDK.
This performance by the North Texas Wind Symphony takes the piece at a very modest tempo (slower than the tempo that the conductor for my ensemble took it at). Link starts at 3:07 (the aforementioned infamous passage): https://youtu.be/wymK6sAXw-k?si=G5726GiQIboEjHB7&t=187

For Asphalt Cocktail, it's fast (quarter note = 168ish+) and has very awkward runs (music theory nerds like me would find octatonic scales in those runs), including the worst three measures I've ever played technique-wise (picture below; pardon the cluttered pencil markings!). I think I felt like I nailed this passage only once, and it was in rehearsal.

Again, I don't think this was as hard for the brass as it was for the woodwinds. Performance from the Michigan State University Wind Symphony here: https://youtu.be/knGTeMQpdL8?si=__fNA2JARjs9pf5o

 

[BugWub24]

I may have y'all beat on this one...

And the mountains rising nowhere - Joseph Schwantner (played on 3rd Trombone a couple of years ago)

Go watch the score on YouTube and you'll understand. The first page of the score is intimidating enough. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKFnUk51Nig

To add to that, no one except the tuba and percussion has individual parts- the parts are all together on one sheet. If it wasn't already hard enough to follow through the score lol

[Thatonedoublereed14]

On 11/13/2025 at 2:44 PM, SaltySynth said:

Agean Festival Overture on bassoon.

High School

The piece moves between so many times signatures almost every 4 bars and it never quite felt settled(even in recordings). The bassoons had multiple solos and many moments where it was only me and my 2 bassoon friends playing. Over all we kind of had an easy part besides how exposed our parts were.

The pieces was about 12 minutes long, technically difficult, and muscly difficult. The main highlight of the piece is the 2 minutes clarinet cadenza (solo) that was played so well by one of my friends. Besides the solos and the difficulty of the pieces, over all it was fun and I enjoyed it even though it was way above my skill level. I look forward to playing it in the future.

Played this last year at my school (on bassoon, too), and it definitely has its moments of difficulty. While the solo in and of itself wasn't challenging, I had to match the style and lyricism of the all-state flute player in the flute solo directly following the bassoon solo, so that provided a unique challenge for me. Ensemble-wise, however, that piece is very challenging with all its time signature changes as well as the high range required for most instruments in the piece. I had a ton of fun playing it and the melody is very catchy and fun to listen to over and over again, which is why I love it so much.

[fruitiestflute]

1. What is the hardest piece(s) of band music you've ever played? What instrument(s) did you play it on?

Oh for SURE the Polar Express suite, I played it twice, both on 2nd flute. Jupiter is a close second but I love that piece so much, the fun i had playing it outweighs any complaints I have for it.

2. Did you play the piece(s) in high school? College? Or marching band (*cough* Hebron)?

Both times I played it have been in high school, first time my freshman year (which was a big slap in the face, making top band my freshman year and being given Polar Express) and now my senior year.

 

3. What made the piece(s) hard for YOU? What made it hard for the whole ensemble? How was your part significantly harder (or easier) than other parts in the ensemble?

The tempo and the runs and the technique made it hard for me. Some sections were easier for me than the rest of my section this year (I also got an advantage being the only flute in wind ensemble to have played the piece before, lmao) but the runs going into the main piece of the suite still kill me. I'd say the flutes have one of the hardest parts in the whole ensemble, but the brass in my band struggled with triplets so take my opinion with a grain (or multiple) of salt.

4. Was the piece(s) musically difficult? Technically difficult? Or both? What made it that way

I attached a photo I took of my part in freshman year, those triplets KILLED ME because theres no easy way to do triplets with those notes at 170 bpm, at least none that ive learned!!! Theres also a ~10 measure concert C on the first page that isnt shown, and thats difficult because both times i played this, i ended up being the only flute to play it.

like wtf do you mean FASTER!!!!

[BandConnoisseur]

Festival Variations by Claude T. Smith...an old "war horse" piece that no one really plays anymore. Toughest piece top to bottom I've ever performed.

[wtxbd02]

Am a percussionist so that will influence mine. 

Definitely Maslanka Symphony No. 4.  Played a keyboard part on that, some wicked fast runs in there and the drumming section was pretty challenging.  

Mackey Wine Dark Sea wasn't quite as hard but still pretty challenging (played toms).  But was a BLAST.  Probably the most fun band piece I got to play, just get to wail away as loud as possible at the end of that piece.  

Most of my challenging ones came in college since I went to a 4A, but in high school the Persichetti Symphony for Band is probably the top of this list for HS, but wasn't absurdly hard.  Super fun xylophone part. 

Percussion ensemble wise played some VERY difficult stuff in college.  Got to play a lot of the popular ones.  Kyoto by John Psathas and Palace of Nine Perfections (Marimba 1 on both) were probably the two most challenging parts I ever got.  But insanely fun.  Didn't get as hard of parts but did Prelude to Paradise by Jacob Remington and Crown of Thorns by David Maslanka as well which are two that probably pop up at the top of those lists.