Etudes

The Wall Street Journal, as part of its useful Masterpiece series, has an essay on the Transcendental Etudes by Liszt. They begin with a history of the instrumental technical study:

By the first years of the 19th century, the piano had become the major domestic musical instrument. Composers began turning out countless études (studies), short pieces of music designed to help student pianists achieve technical competence in scales, arpeggios, octaves, trills and so forth.

Mostly, these concoctions were musically arid and unmemorable. Carl Czerny (1791-1857), Beethoven’s prize pupil, was king of the étude, profitably churning out such pieces. They are helpful, but in their medicinal content they have been practiced grudgingly throughout the generations. H.L. Mencken, a lifelong amateur pianist, wrote, “As late as 1930, being in Vienna, I desecrated Czerny’s grave.”

One wonders if other piano students have wished to do the same... This bare-bones account could be fleshed out by saying that the piano in its fortepiano incarnation, had been the leading domestic musical instrument for several decades. What had changed was the growth of domestic music-making. Whereas in the 18th century the tendency was for music production to be centered around the great aristocratic estates, after the French Revolution more and more a prosperous middle class turned to music-making in the home. The piano was the instrument of choice, both in solo pieces and transcriptions and as an accompaniment to vocal works. The interesting thing is that it was these amateur musicians that spurred the development of an immense repertoire of technical studies. In the hands of someone like Liszt, the mundane technical etude became a work, not only of considerable virtuosity, but also of considerable musical content.

Liszt had retired from the concert stage at age 36 and now lived in Weimar as court composer and conductor. He was at the dawn of his legendary teaching career. In 1851 he revised and entirely reworked his études, eliminating the dross while retaining their daring virtuosity, and adding to their sonorous splendor and romantic allure. While still among the most difficult works in the repertoire, the third version achieved a magnificent playability. For all but two he added an evocative title, now calling the cycle “Etudes d’exécution transcendante.”

For a little sample, here is Evgeny Kissin with the Etude No. 10:

In recent years a couple of composers have made considerable contributions to the piano etude repertoire. Between 1985 and 2001 Ligeti composed 18 etudes for piano. Here is Yuja Wang playing No. 4 from Bk 1:

Philip Glass wrote twenty etudes for piano between 1994 and 2012. Here is Maki Namekawa with etudes Nos. 9 and 20:

A completely different approach was taken by Conlon Nancarrow who labored for years cutting piano rolls by hand to create piano etudes that could simply not be played by an actual pianist. Here is his Study for Player Piano No. 37:

Now I know what you are wondering, what about etudes for guitar? We have a few examples starting with some mundane, if charming, ones by Fernando Sor in the early 19th century. Here is John Williams with studies Nos. 17 to 19 from Segovia's edition:

There are a few later examples from the 19th century including some nice ones by Carcassi, but the really virtuoso etudes were all written in the 20th century. A while back I posted about the Brouwer studies, but the major concert etudes are a set of twelve by Villa-Lobos. They were written in Paris between 1924 and 1928, but not published until 1953. There is a nifty new critical edition published in 2011. The etudes are dedicated to Segovia, who wrote the preface to the first edition, but he only played a few of them. They are very difficult and it took a few decades for guitar technique to catch up to their demands. Nowadays the gifted thirteen-year-old virtuoso Leonora Spangenburger can play the demanding arpeggio study that is Etude No. 1 with great aplomb:

I have always found the Etude 10 one of the most challenging because of its slurs with fixed fingers. Here is a performance by Paulo Martelli:

Probably the most prolific composer of guitar etudes recently is Angelo Gilardino whose Studi di virtuosità e di transcendenza extend to several volumes. I have played several from the first few books where each is a homage to a different composer from guitar composers like Castelnuovo-Tedesco to ones like Prokofiev and Bartók and artists like Goya. His Study No. 6 from the first series titled "Soledad" is a homage to Goya. Here it is played by Bradford Werner:

That completes our tour of the piano and guitar etude.