Talk:Etude

Alan, I'm not so sure that Liszt's early set of etudes were ever meant to be played in public. They were pretty primitive and uninteresting - not far removed stylistically from Czerny exercises, so it would surprise me if Liszt concertized with them. Do you have a source on this?

It's my understanding that Chopin's Op. 10 was the first impetus for the "Concert Etude" genre, but I'm also sourceless here. You also left out the etudes of Rachmaninoff and Scriabin, which one hears actually more often than the Debussy. I'll go ahead and change that sentence myself. All the best.JDWpianist 18:45, 25 March 2009 (EDT)

Yeah...I'll accept two out of three. I forgot Rach's Etudes-Tableaux, (no excuse why, I hear 'em often enough) and was not aware of the importance of Scriabin's. However concerning Liszt ; Grove says: "The origins of the concert study, intended for private study as for private instruction can be traced be traced back to Franz Liszt’s Études en 12 exercises in about 1827." Cheers AlanE 01:20, 27 March 2009 (EDT)

I'm not sure I understand the Grove sentence. Does that mean they were intended for concert use or for private study? It seems telling to me that they were published under the name "Exercises," but were only much later revised and published as "Etudes d'execution transcendante." Yes, these 12 were the origin of the later version, but, it's still unclear to me that these can be considered the beginning of the trend. Most sources I read seem to indicate that it was only after hearing Chopin and Paganini in the 30's that Liszt started to show a fascination with public displays of virtuosity. It's a small point, but I'm eager to get to the bottom of this. JDWpianist 18:29, 27 March 2009 (EDT)

Sorry, that's me reading and writing whilst trying be part of a family...I will try again. Grove says they were: "intended as much for public performance as for private instruction" (My italics...and this time I have checked what I wrote.) The Oxford Companion to Music says: "The 'Etudes d'execution transcendante' of Liszt areconcert etudes of immense difficulty and high romantic quality" (Once again, my italics.)AlanE 18:58, 27 March 2009 (EDT)

Well, we can't have any family men here at Conservapedia!

I'm still skeptical that the Transcendentals in their 1827 version were concert etudes, while the 1837 and 1848 versions (revised after he knew and had played the Chopin Op. 10 in public) were very much so. But I'll concede the point until I can find a more detailed source. Best to the family! JDWpianist 19:16, 27 March 2009 (EDT)

More definitive

AlanE, I've done my library-hunting, and found some confirmation of my suspicions. In the New Grove encylopedia, it talks of the origins of the concert study from its origins in the technical exercise, and says about Chopin: "The concert study attempts to combine the utility of a technical exercise with musical invention equivalent to that of other genres in the concert repertory. The consequent tension between these two aspects was not completely resolved until the studies of Chopin, whose etudes were the first to retain a firm position in the concert repertory."

About Liszt's early version of the Transcendentals, it says "They were based on 12 studies which have the modest didactic scope of the studies written by his teacher Czerny," and goes on to state that the 1837 versions were bonafide concert etudes after Chopin.

I also looked in the MGG (The German equivalent of Grove's), which stated simply that the concert etude was "minted" (prägen) with the publication of Chopin's op. 10. JDWpianist 07:39, 8 April 2009 (EDT)

I have no problems with the revision. I actually managed to get to my own library yesterday - everywhere I looked there was a vagueness (and I don't just mean the librarians) about these early Liszt pieces. I was going to come on here this morning and say that it seems to hinge on the young Franz's intentions. Did he mean them solely as practice or teaching pieces (didactic is too arcane a word at this hour of the morning) or did he also have public performance in mind. He may only have been in his mid-teens but Liszt was Liszt and was probably already the showman. That's all. AlanE 17:56, 9 April 2009 (EDT)

I read a little biography as well while I was at it. At the time when the etudes were published, he was teaching piano students in Paris all day to support himself and his mother after Adam Liszt died. His real period of concert activity came about 8-10 years later. It's a fair point that he was always Liszt, but it's also true that before he was the super virtuoso, he led a monk-like existence, practicing 12 hours a day.

All this, combined with the fact that Liszt's later etudes were demonstratively titled "Grand Etudes de concert...", seem to indicate that his thinking had changed in the meantime. JDWpianist 19:55, 9 April 2009 (EDT)