Float around the melodies or bash them into submission, for pianists there’s no getting around the fact that some works are fiendishly fast and difficult almost to the point of making your overworked digits collapse onto the keyboard. You may not realize just how difficult these works are, as seasoned pianists approach and perform them with an apparent sense of ease. Here are six of those dizzyingly virtuosic works:

Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit (Wednesday, June 26) 

This ridiculously challenging technical work was inspired by a haunting collection of poems by French poet Aloysius Bertrand and is generally considered one of the most challenging works in the standard piano repertoire. Upon completion of the composition, Ravel himself considered that, “perhaps I got a little carried away.” 

Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 9 in E-flat major, K. 271, “Jeunehomme” (Friday, June 28)
While it may not be as flashy or require the same technical prowess of a Romantic concerto, Mozart’s Ninth Piano Concerto necessitates a near perfect sense of rhythm and style. This work separates the great pianists from the merely good ones—and leaves the only-average ones in the dust. 

Rachmaninoff’s Suite No. 1 for Two Pianos, Fantaisie-tableaux, op. 5 and Suite No. 2 for Two Pianos, op. 17 (Saturday, June 29) 
What’s more impressive than one pianist dancing around the keyboard, seemingly effortlessly delivering a flawless performance? Two pianists! Experience a perfect complement of piano virtuosos—Daniil Trifonov and his teacher Sergei Babayan—in a duet recital performing an extraordinary all-Rachmaninoff program that kicks off with his First and Second Suites for Two Pianos. Stick around to be dazzled by the original two piano setting of Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances. Need we say more? 

Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major, op. 26 (Sunday, July 21)
While it was Prokofiev’s First Piano Concerto that was written for a competition called "Battle of the Pianos," and is pretty darn challenging for a pianist—it’s nothing compared to his Third. Like his compatriot Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev was a fearsome pianist and poured his own mastery of the instrument into what is sometimes thought of as the most difficult piano concerto of them all. Well, since Prokofiev himself played the premiere, at least today’s pianists can’t complain that the composer has asked them to do anything he wouldn’t do himself!

Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in F-sharp minor, op. 1 (Sunday, August 11)
Rachmaninoff is known for his fiendishly difficult piano scores, and this one is no exception. First composed at the age of 17, Rachmaninoff revisited and made significant revisions to the concerto 26 years later, after he had already written his notoriously difficult second and third concertos. Pleased with the final product, Rachmaninoff claimed that the work “plays itself so much more easily.” Easy for him to say: he famously had hands that could cover an interval of a thirteenth on a piano keyboard (about 12 inches across!) and could play most works in the repertoire with ease. The piece remains a challenge for most mere mortals who attempt the work.