I recall that when I took my Grade 8 piano exam back in 1980, I had to play a complete sonata for List B. In my case, I chose Beethoven's Sonata in E major, Op. 14 No. 1 which is currently set for DipABRSM. The marks allocated for the pieces at that time also differ from the present (which is 30 marks for each of the three pieces). Back then, it was 27 marks each for Lists A & C pieces and a whopping 36 marks for the List B work. Looking back at the piano syllabuses of the 1970 & 80s, I notice that COMPLETE works such as the Mozart Sonata in D, K. 576, Beethoven's Sonata in A flat, Op. 26, Schubert's Sonata in B major, D. 575, Grieg's Sonata in E minor, Op. 7 and Ravel's Sonatine were set for Grade 8. Has the standard of Grade 8 piano declined since then?

In addition, Grades 6 & 7 piano exams used to require four pieces instead of the present three & they were allocated marks as follows: 27, 27, 18 & 18. I wonder what the rationale is behind the Board's decision to simplify repertoire requirements for the higher grades and make mark allocation for the pieces entirely uniform across all grades...

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I was wondering about the same thing! Earlier this year I found myself reading the AB syllabi closely as I had not taken an AB exam myself for 17 years and was about to enter a couple of students for the spring session. The aural tests were very different from those I had done. But what I found the most striking was the repertoire requirements. It is now possible for piano students to avoid exam pieces from the Baroque or Classical period completely before they reach Grade 8. So it is really up to the teachers to make sure that their students learn at least one piece from each stylistic period in each grade.

The current Grade 8 piano requirements are definitely much easier than the old ones. I feel that the Grade 6 and 7 pieces are somewhat easier than the old ones as well. Any thoughts on that?

I happen to have a copy of the 1974 Grade 6 List A book. One of the pieces is Beethoven's Sonat[in]a in G, OP. 79, 3rd movement. Apparently that was set as a Grade 7 piece in 1999. Also, this year's Grade 6 includes Grieg's Einsammer Wanderer which the ABRSM previously classified as Grade 5.

However, the 1974 scale & arpeggio requirements may be marginally less demanding.
e.g. in 1974 they only ask for 3 contrary motion major scales rather than the current 4 major and minor.
Also only 3 diminished 7th chords rather 4. The only staccato scale is C in 6ths (rather than the current C in 3rds + 4 other majors).

I live in the United States. Earlier this year I showed one piano teacher the ABRSM syllabus and said that I believed that Grade 8 was the standard people were supposed to be at before they went to study music at university. He seemed surprised that the level of the pieces wasn't higher but he thought the technical requirements (scales etc.) was reasonably high. This also surprised me as in other areas (e.g. science) U.S. university entrancement requirements are lower than in the U.K.

I have a collection of old exam books - just pulled one out at random - and it happens to be 1974 too.

The group A pieces for grade 8 were as follows:

Bach Prelude and Fugue in Eflat bk2 no 7
Bach Partita no 2 in C minor bwv 826 sinfonia
Bach Prelude in G bwv 902
Handel Suite no 5 in E Air and variations
Hindemith Ludus Tonalis: Interlude p27 and Fugue no 5 in E.

From the examples given in this thread, it seems to me that the requirements for the pieces were more demanding in the 1970-80 period than when I took G8 in 1951. I played two movements from the JSBach French Suite in G (one of them was the last movement gigue); movements two and three of the aforementioned Mozart in D; and a piece by John Ireland called "Merryandrew", written a mere 32 years earlier. I note that some of the current G8 List C are over 150 years old. but they do include a few pieces by living composers

If current pieces are easier than 30 years ago, the aural certainly looks to me to be more difficult than when I took G8, though no better related to the sort of practical problems that face me as a performer.

Interestingly, the flute Grade 8 syllabus has got harder, in that the Lennox Berkeley Sonatina first movement I played for Grade 8 in 1974 is now a Grade 7 piece.

I think there were two influences that led to the change. One was that other instruments were not expected to play a full sonata, so it seemed unfair to expect this of pianists. The second was time - a whole sonata could take as long as 15 - 20 minutes to play, so stopping the candidates during each movement was inevitable.

It was always possible to replace a sonata with a much shorter and more manageable single movement piece such as a Schubert Impromptu. Once I cottoned on to this, none of my students ever prepared a sonata. I bet I was not alone in this; perhaps that also fuelled the change.

Steve

I managed shorter pieces when I did my own grade 8 in 1984 - Bach Prelude??? from his A minor english suite, Debussy Sarabande - ......oh no I tell a lie, I did Schubert Variations in A minor. A lengthy piece there then!!!
And I remember teaching 2 girls for grade 8 who had to do the entire Beethoven C minor sonata - op 10? and that was about 10 years ago.


And on the topic of 'dumbing down' the Handel Fantasia in C on grade 7 list was one of my grade 6 pieces in the late 1970's!!

The frustrating thing in a sense is that if pupils are wanting to do advanced higher music with performance extensions they have to prepare I think 25-30 minutes of playing, which would have been more possible in the good old days, but is a complete nightmare now, as if they're wanting to do grade 8, all the lesson time is taken up with this, but yet the total performance time comes in well below the requirements. So I have to tell them they can't do both!!