Etude

An etude (from the French word étude meaning "study") is a short musical composition designed to provide practice in a particular technical skill in the performance of a solo instrument. For example, Frédéric Chopin's etude Op. 25 No. 6 trains pianists to play rapid parallel chromatic thirds, Op. 25 No. 7 emphasizes the production of singing tone in a polyphonic melody, and Op. 25 No. 10 covers parallel octaves.

List of etude composers

For the piano

Born before 1700

• Girolamo Diruta (c. 1554–1610)

Born 1700–1799

• Johann Baptist Cramer (1771–1858)
• John Field (1782–1837)
• Carl Czerny (1791–1857)
• Ignaz Moscheles (1794–1870)
• Henri Bertini (1798–1876): wrote 24 etudes (op. 29)

Born 1800–1850

• Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847)
• Robert Schumann (1810–1856): wrote the Études symphoniques.
• Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849): wrote 24 etudes in two sets of 12 etudes each (his op. 10, op. 25), plus three more, for a total of 27.
• Franz Liszt (1811–1886): wrote the set of "Transcendental Etudes", with its two revisions; six etudes on themes by Niccolò Paganini (among them the famous La Campanella); and five "Études de Concert" (one set of three and another set of two). In contrast with Chopin's etudes, which tend to stress a specific aspect of performance difficulty, Liszt's etudes tend to stress mastery of performance as a whole.
• Charles-Valentin Alkan (1813–1888): wrote etudes in all 12 major keys (op. 35) and in all 12 minor keys (op. 39); and also three "Grande Études" (op. 76).
• Adolf von Henselt
• Clara Schumann (1819–1896)
• Bed?ich Smetana (1824–1884): wrote a concert etude, Am Seegestade - Eine Erinnerung
• Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829–1869): wrote Tremolo and Manchega, two concert etudes.
• Johannes Brahms (1833–1897): including 51 Exercises for Piano published in 1893
• Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–1921): wrote two sets of 6 etudes each (op. 52 and 111)
• Agathe Backer Grøndahl (1847–1907): wrote 19 "Concert Etudes".

Born 1850–1899

• Moritz Moszkowski (1854–1925): wrote 15 Études de Virtuositié (op. 72), 12 studies for the left hand alone (op. 92), and 20 technical studies (op. 91).
• Sergei Liapunov (1859–1924): wrote Duoze études d'exécution transcendante in memory of Liszt
• Edward Alexander MacDowell (1860–1908): wrote 12 etudes (op. 46)
• Claude Debussy (1862–1918)
• Gabriel Pierné (1863–1937): wrote a concert etude (op. 13)
• Jean Sibelius (1865–1957)
• Ferruccio Busoni (1866–1924): wrote six etudes (op. 16)
• Leopold Godowsky (1870–1938): wrote 60 paraphrases on Chopin's etudes, of which 53 are published; three original "Concert Studies" (op. 11), and the Etude Macabre.
• Alexander Scriabin (1872–1915): wrote 26 etudes (op. 2, 8, 42, 49, 56 and 65)
• Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873–1943): wrote two sets of Etudes-Tableux (op. 33 and 39).
• Charles Ives (1874–1954)
• Josef Hofmann (1876–1957)
• Ernö Dohnányi (1877–1960): wrote six "Concert Etudes" (op. 28).
• Béla Bartók (1881–1945): wrote three etudes (op. 18)
• Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971): wrote four etudes (op. 7)
• Karol Szymanowski (1882–1937)
• Alfredo Casella (1883–1947)
• Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953): wrote 4 etudes (Op. 2)
• George Gershwin (1898–1937): wrote 7 Virtuoso Etudes on Popular Songs

Born after 1900

• Olivier Messiaen (1908–1992)
• Witold Lutos?awski (1913–1994): wrote two etudes (1940-1941)
• Robert Starer (1924–2001): wrote The Contemporary Virtuoso, a set of 7 etudes
• Einojuhani Rautavaara (born 1928): wrote six etudes (op. 42)
• György Ligeti (born 1923): wrote three volumes (1985, 1988–1994 and 1995)
• Philip Glass (born 1937) (1994–)
• Nikolai Kapustin (born 1937)
• Marc-André Hamelin (born 1961): wrote a set of 12 etudes in minor keys

For other instruments

• Rodolphe Kreutzer (1766–1831): for the violin
• Matteo Carcassi (1792–1853): for the guitar
• Francisco Tárrega (1852–1909): for the guitar
• Julius Klengel (1859–1933): for the cello
• Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887–1959): for the guitar
• Andrés Segovia (1893–1987): for the guitar