etude

Frédéric Chopin's Étude Op. 10, No. 2: a rapid chromatic scale in the right hand is used to develop the weaker fingers of the right hand. Most etudes are written to perfect a particular technical skill.

An étude (a French word meaning study), is an instrumental musical composition, most commonly of considerable difficulty, usually designed to provide practice material for perfecting a particular technical skill. The tradition of writing etudes emerged in the early 19th century with the rapidly growing popularity of the piano. Of the vast number of etudes from that era some are still used as teaching material (particularly pieces by Carl Czerny and Muzio Clementi), and a few, by major composers such as Frédéric Chopin, Franz Liszt, Claude Debussy and Charles-Valentin Alkan, achieved a place in today's concert repertory. Composers of the 20th century variously composed etudes related to the old tradition (György Ligeti), etudes that required wholly unorthodox technique (John Cage), and etudes that required unusually facile technique.

19th century

Studies, "lessons" and other didactic instrumental pieces composed before the 19th century are very varied, without any established genres. The pieces in lute instruction books, such as the celebrated Varietie of Lute-Lessons (1610), may be arranged in order of increasing difficulty, but will usually include both simple teaching pieces and masterworks by renowned composers. Domenico Scarlatti's 30 Essercizi per gravicembalo ("30 Exercises for harpsichord", 1738) do not differ in scope from his other keyboard works, and Johann Sebastian Bach's four volumes of Clavier-Übung ("keyboard practice") contain everything from simple organ duets to the extensive and difficult Goldberg Variations.

The situation changed in the early 19th century because of the growing popularity of the piano as a domestic instrument. Instruction books with exercises became very common. Of particular importance were collections of "studies" by Johann Baptist Cramer (published between 1804 and 1810), early parts of Muzio Clementi's Gradus ad Parnassum (1817–26), numerous works by Carl Czerny, and Ignaz Moscheles' Studien Op. 70 (1825–26). Most of these pieces concentrated on the technical side of music and were not intended for performance. However, with the late parts of Clementi's collection and Moscheles' Charakteristische Studien Op. 95 (1836–37) the situation began to change, with both composers striving to create music that would both please the audiences in concert and serve as a good teaching tool. Such combination of didactic and musical value in a study is sometimes referred to as a concert study.

Last bars of Franz Liszt's Transcendental Étude No. 2, Fusées: one of the most difficult of Liszt's etudes, this is a study in passages for alternating and overlapping hands.

Frédéric Chopin's etudes, Op. 10 (1833) and Op. 25 (1837) were the first to retain a firm position in the concert repertory, and are commonly regarded today as some of the finest etudes ever written. The technique required to play them was extremely novel at the time of their publication, and the first performer who succeeded at mastering these pieces was the renowned virtuoso composer, Franz Liszt (to whom Chopin's Op. 10 is dedicated). Liszt himself composed a number of etudes that were more extensive, and even more complex than Chopin's. Among these, the most well-known is the collection Etudes d'Execution Transcendante (final version published in 1852). These did not retain the didactic aspect of Chopin's work, however, since the difficulty (and the technique used) varies within a given piece. Collections of etudes by Charles-Valentin Alkan, marked by harmonic and structural experimentation, are similar in this aspect. Alkan's work includes some of the first etudes written for a single hand.

The 19th century also saw a number of etude and study collections for instruments other than the piano. Violin etudes by Rodolphe Kreutzer, Federigo Fiorillo and others, and cello etudes by Friederich Dotzauer and Friedrich Wilhelm Grutzmacher are used mostly as teaching tools today. The only etudes to make their way to concert repertory are those by Niccolò Paganini: 24 Caprices (1802–17). These works all conform to the standard definition of 19th century etude in that they are short compositions, each exploiting a single facet of technique. Collections of studies for flute were published during the second half of the 19th century by Ernesto Köhler, Wilhelm Popp and Adolf Terschak.

20th century

The beginning of John Cage's Etude 8, Book I of Etudes Australes. These etudes, while not didactic, are still very challenging to play, and are based on an unorthodox playing technique. The top two staves are for the right hand, the lower two are for the left hand.

The early 20th century saw the publication of a number of important collections of etudes. Claude Debussy's Études for piano (1915) conform to the "one facet of technique per piece" rule, but exhibit unorthodox structures with many sharp contrasts, and many concentrate on sonorities and timbres peculiar to the piano, rather than technical points. 53 studies on the Chopin etudes (1894–1914) by pianist Leopold Godowsky are built on Chopin's etudes: Godowsky's additions and changes elevated Chopin's music to new, hitherto unknown levels of difficulty, which led Ferruccio Busoni to remark that Godowsky was the only composer to have added anything of significance to keyboard writing since Liszt. Other important etudes of this period include Heitor Villa-Lobos' virtuoso 12 Études for guitar (1929) and pieces by Russian composers: Sergei Rachmaninoff's Études-Tableaux (1911, 1917) and several collections by Alexander Scriabin (all for piano).

By mid-century the old etude tradition was largely abandoned. Olivier Messiaen's Quatre études de rythme ("Four studies in rhythm", 1949–50) were not didactic compositions, but experiments with serial durations and pitches. John Cage's etudes—Etudes Australes (1974–75) for piano, Etudes Boreales (1978) for cello and/or piano and Freeman Etudes (1977–80, 1989–90) for violin—are indeterminate pieces based on star charts, and some of the most difficult works in the repertory. The three books of etudes by György Ligeti (1985, 1988–94, 1995) are perhaps closest to the old tradition in that they too concentrate each on a particular technique.

See also

• List of etude composers

References

• Howard Ferguson, Kenneth L. Hamilton. "Study", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (accessed 5 December 2006), grovemusic.com (subscription access).

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