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ETUDE (AY-tood)
A
short musical composition designed to provide practice
Common
clues:
Chopin
work; Pianist's practice work; Recital piece; Musical exercise;
Piece that teaches technique
Crossword
puzzle frequency:
4 times a year
News:
200
years after his birth, Chopin remains a key composer
Video:
Mei-ting
Sun Chopin Etudes Op10 nos 1 2 4 5
Audio:
Frederic
Chopin – Beautiful music, frail body
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, Frederic 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 melody, and
Op. 25 No. 10 covers parallel octaves.
Musical
studies have been composed since the 18th century, most notably
by Carl Czerny, but it was Chopin who transformed the etude into
an important musical genre. Chopin wrote 24 etudes in two sets of
12 etudes each (Op. 10, Op. 25), plus three more, for a total of
27. Other noted composers of etudes are Franz Liszt, Alexander
Scriabin, and Sergei Rachmaninoff. Etudes for other instruments
have been written as well, for example Rodolphe Kreutzer's etudes
for the violin.
Chopin's
etudes tend to stress a specific aspect of performance
difficulty; Liszt's etudes tend to stress mastery of performance
as a whole.
The
etudes that are most widely admired are those which transcend
their practical function and come to be appreciated simply as
music. For example, Chopin's etudes are considered not just
technically difficult, but also musically very powerful and
expressive. In contrast, Czerny's are only technically difficult.
Thus Chopin's etudes are continually performed before
appreciative audiences, whereas Czerny's are confined to the
practice room.
This
article is licensed under the GNU
Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia
article "Etude".
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