As with most topics in the Broadway world, when it comes to the question of which musical theatre songs are the most difficult, it's a hotly-contested issue.
And for good reason. Not only are they a feat of vocal talent, the purpose of a musical theatre song is to move the plot forward, meaning that the performer has to inform the audience, as well as inspire emotion.
From intense sweeping feelings to vocal agility and rapid-fire lyrics, there are many factors that can contribute to a song being difficult to perform, especially when you bear in mind that actors are performing these songs up to eight nights a week across a musical's run.
We've put together a list of the most difficult musical theatre songs of all time, judged and ranked by a selection of West End experts – and they might not be the choices you'd expect.
How we judged the most difficult musical theatre songs
The 12 songs listed below have all been ranked in order of difficulty, going from the lowest score to the highest. But where exactly did these scores come from?
When it comes to the difficulty of songs, personal preferences and individual capabilities heavily influence ranking. So, we aimed to make the process as unbiased as possible by developing a matrix to rank different scores according to different criteria.
Each of the following six elements was ranked on a scale of 1-5:
- Breath control – length of phrases, sustained notes, breath recovery, limited breathing opportunities
- Vocal range – very high notes, very low notes, how long a song sits in a demanding part of the range
- Tempo and rhythmic difficulties – speed, syncopation, rapid passages
- Emotional range – intensity, emotional shifts, climactic builds
- Phonetic challenges – challenging vowels and consonants, articulation, tongue-twisters
- Vocal agility – wide intervals, melisma, vocal flips, runs, ornamentation
We then added up the scores to get a final score out of 30 for each song.
Meet our experts
Adam Pettigrew
Adam is an actor and vocal coach who trained at The BRIT School, The Betty Wivell Academy and ArtsEd. He has been teaching professionally at drama schools, as well as to private clients, since 2010. Theatre credits include Boq in Wicked (West End) and Princeton/Rod in Avenue Q (UK Tour).
Claire Greenaway
Claire Greenaway is an actress and vocal coach who trained at the Royal Academy of Music. She originated the role of Mary Patrick in the original cast of Sister Act at the London Palladium, and have recently toured the UK and internationally with tours of Beautiful, Mamma Mia, Calamity Jane and Jane Eyre.
CJ Johnson
CJ Johnson is a West End, TV and film actor, singer and a vocal coach in top London conservatoires, global arts organisations and to private students. Theatre credits include 42nd Street, Oliver, Small Island (NT), Piaf, Jesus Christ Superstar – and she has recently finished performing in Hamlet with the Royal Shakespeare Co and assisting as voice captain. She trained at the Royal Academy of Music.
David Ashley (Dash)
David Ashley, known professionally as Dash, is a theatre creative, singing teacher and director who trained at the Royal School of Church Music and the Tanwood Theatre School. He has appeared in over 11 West End plays and musicals, including Cats, Les Misérables, Blood Brothers and Starlight Express, as well as 14 pantomimes.
The 12 most difficult musical theatre songs of all time
12. No One Else (Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812)
- Score: 26
- Written by: Dave Malloy
David Ashley: "The contemporary legit quality can prove tricky to navigate through the range of this piece. The control of the line whilst connecting to the world of the character, and the tessitura of the song moves in quite a large range, making the technical elements of managing No One Else difficult."
No One Else is sung by Natasha towards the beginning of Great Comet as she dreams of her fiancé, Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, who has gone to war.
While most of Great Comet is a unique blend of indie, electropop and Russian folk elements, No One Else is more of a traditional Broadway aria requiring a strong head voice and carefully planned breathing due to its conversational tone.
11. Rose's Turn (Gypsy)
- Score: 26
- Written by: Jule Styne, Stephen Sondheim
Claire Greenaway: "It’s the dream of every diva to get the chance to stretch your emotional wings like this in front of an audience; hence why everyone from Ethel Merman to Audra McDonald has clamoured for this role. As Rose’s world comes tumbling round her, her desperation and ambition pours out in an almost manic stream of consciousness.
"Emotionally you’re taking wild swings between honesty, brash and brassy determination, bitterness and hurt. Vocally, you’re not reaching the wild heights or vocal gymnastics of some newer answers, but you’re using every ounce of your speech quality of every volume, being asked to let some of your prettier tones go in favour of vulnerability and brokenness, and then switching back to bold, old-school Broadway belting."
"This is all within the difficulties of negotiating the musical and mental difficulties of a complex Styne and Sondheim score, while trying to make it sound like it’s soaring out totally naturally. You’re pouring your heart out every night and leaving yourself bleeding."
10. Pity the Child (Chess)
- Score: 27
- Written by: Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus, Tim Rice
CJ Johnson: "Back in 2006, I was in the cast of Chess at the Oslo Spektrum Arena and a highlight was getting to perform that beautifully complex, anthemic music with a rock band in an 11,000 seater arena. I looked forward to Pity the Child, performed by Sean Kingsley, every night.
"A heart-breaking arena-rock crossover ballad with no place to hide, both vocally and emotionally. It climbs and climbs, pulls back and then explodes a whole octave and a half higher to end! The most difficult musical theatre songs to sing are those that see the character undertake a huge emotional journey or psychological unravelling as the song progresses.
"Technically, the challenge is to find a solid technique that matches the intensity of the music without carrying so much weight up with you in the voice that you find yourself reaching."
9. Defying Gravity (Wicked)
- Score: 27
- Written by: Stephen Schwartz
Adam Pettigrew: "This brilliant closing of act one number of Wicked, now even more famous due the success of the film, is a real challenge. I was lucky enough to hear the masterful Rachel Tucker perform this expertly eight times a week at the Apollo Victoria – there are a lot of technical demands in this song, and on top of that you are also flying in the air for all the hardest notes!
"An underrated challenge of this song is how high the pressure is as the whole audience is waiting on the edge of their seats for the last notes of the song while you are soaring above the rest of the cast who are all directly looking up at you, it literally is all eyes on you."
8. And I'm Telling You (Dreamgirls)
- Score: 27
- Written by: Henry Krieger, Tom Eyen
Claire Greenaway: "It could be argued that this song won Jennifer Hudson her Oscar, Jennifer Holliday her Tony, and Amber Riley her Olivier.
"Just like Rose’s Turn, this is a full emotional gamut from devastation to almost manic determination. This one, however, is filtered through the vocal gymnastics and full-throated passion of R&B, using gospel riffs and ad libs, tailored to the individual artist’s range and skills to show a woman on the verge of every high and low, emotionally and vocally.
"To watch Jennifer Holliday’s Effie folded over in half, growling, screaming and sobbing through incredible vocal feats is to understand how the voice’s technicalities can be used to show you pure emotion and well as just being blown away with the prowess. It’s a true showstopper, every time."
7. Getting Married Today (Company)
- Score: 27
- Written by: Stephen Sondheim
Adam Pettigrew: "This super-fast Sondheim comedy song from Company (1970) was originally written for a female-identifying role, but in the most recent production in the West End and on Broadway directed by Marianne Elliott the role was gender-swapped along with many other characters in the production.
"The character Amy (or Jamie) is having a breakdown on their wedding day. The speed, detail in the lyrics, length of phrases, lack of places to breathe, the number of verses and heightened emotion make this song a real marathon of technique for even the most seasoned musical theatre actors.
"Guns and Ships in Hamilton (2015) has now narrowly overtaken the speed of this song with an incredible 6.3 words a second, where as this one only squeezes in 6.2!"
6. Your Daddy's Son (Ragtime)
- Score: 27.5
- Written by: Stephen Flaherty, Lynn Ahrens
David Ashley: "This epic moment in Ragtime is driven by tension, something which can be notoriously difficult to manage.
"The explosive middle section is bookended by a gentle and light vocal quality, making this a glorious monster of a song!"
This solo for Sarah in Ragtime sheds light on the character's backstory, as well as providing more context for her emotional breakdown. Your Daddy's Son requires the performer to perform a delicate tightrope walk between technical vocal control and raw anguished emotion.
5. Gethsemane (Jesus Christ Superstar)
- Score: 27.5
- Written by: Andrew Lloyd Webber, Tim Rice
Adam Pettigrew: "This is a brilliant power house song from Jesus Christ Superstar with a massive vocal range – no wonder Sam Ryder has been cast in the role after hitting the same heights with Space Man at Eurovision.
"It has a large vocal range as well as long sustained notes, followed by emotionally charged rock falsetto, making it a real formidable song to perform. Hitting the same notes with different vocal qualities and volumes is a big technical battle in this song as they sit right on the male Passaggio where the voice wants to break (thank you Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber!).
"In the score, 'Ad lib hysterical sobbing' is one of the directions which gives each Jesus a bit of freedom to put their own stamp on the song while hysterically sobbing on pitch!"
4. I'm Here (The Color Purple)
- Score: 28
- Written by: Brenda Russell, Allee Willis, Stephen Bray
CJ Johnson: "I remember hearing Cynthia Erivo on an interview answering that she finds I’m Here the more challenging when given a choice between that and Defying Gravity.
"Like Pity the Child, we have an emotional and musical journey that share the pattern of swelling and receding throughout, as opposed to the gradual climb. The most powerful declaration of resilience and self-love that must sound and feel like it’s being dug deep from the soul.
"I am often asked when I am coaching how we can serve the story within a song without the emotional connection being at detriment to our stamina within the song and general vocal health, particularly when we need the voice for eight shows a week.
"If you’re learning any skill and feeling disheartened at how the focus on technique can sometimes feel limiting to your expression… remember, with a solid technical grounding and practise, your accessing vocal qualities slowly becomes second nature, within your muscle memory and you soon have fifty colours to paint with, rather than one!"
3. Soliloquy (Carousel)
- Score: 28
- Written by: Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II
David Ashley: "The vocal qualities of Soliloquy from Carousel are challenging, moving from something lyrical, into something more conversational before switching to light and effortless and ending with a big finish.
"There is a lot of storytelling detail which needs technical supporting, plus the air flow and pressure balances that work alongside all of these elements."
2. I'm Breaking Down (Falsettos)
- Score: 28
- Written by: William Finn
CJ Johnson: "I often observe in my students that the anticipation of what’s to come can stand firmly in the way of good technique. So when a song is called I’m Breaking Down, we sort of know where we’re expected to end up.
"The technical work in preparation really needs to be in both the physical and the psychological. We can often make singing much easier than we think, and we need to choose our moments in epic songs like this. With this song, we have to honour so many corners of thought and changes in emotional direction.
"The intervals are forever straddling the Passaggio, the climax of ‘the only thing that’s breaking up is my family’ jumping a whole octave. It is, at that point, after all that prep, that we can be free, tell the story and enter ‘the zone’ or flow state-that joyous, total immersion in the present moment as you are performing."
1. Glitter and Be Gay (Candide)
- Score: 29
- Written by: Leonard Bernstein, Richard Wilbur
Claire Greenaway: "This stand out showstopper from Bernstein’s Candide is often considered an opera piece as much as musical theatre, requiring a coloratura (very high and agile) soprano with impeccable technique and training, while also demanding the skills of a dramatic clown.
"Cue Kristin Chenoweth. Watch her New York Philharmonic semi-staged concert performance, her Cunégonde throwing herself sobbing on a chaise lounge, and then swiftly hula-hooping her string of pearls while delivering a Queen of the Night-worthy run of sparkling notes without missing a musical or comic beat.
"Vocally, it hits several top Es (think Phantom of the Opera’s highest note, then do it three times) and long runs of trills and melismas that require hours of study. It also asks that you bring out witty lyrics in an “operatic” quality, which can be very demanding, and isn’t often balanced in favour of lyrics as well as it could be! Honestly, it throws every vocal trick in the book at you while also asking that you deliver a Lucille Ball-esque comedy tour de force."
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