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)