Studies on Chopin's Études

Studies on Chopin's Études is a set of 53 arrangements of Chopin's études by Leopold Godowsky. (The number of studies is often given as 54, with Op. 25, No. 2 having one study written as a considerably different ossia of another; a similar ossia also exists for one of the studies on Op. 25, No. 3, so the total number of studies can be taken to be 55. In contrast, Godowsky's original numbering scheme runs only to 48.) They are renowned for their technical difficulty: critic Harold C. Schonberg called them "the most impossibly difficult things ever written for the piano." Several of the studies (for example, the study "Ignis Fatuus" on Chopin's Étude in A minor, Op. 10, No. 2) put the original right-hand part into the left hand; several others are for the left hand alone (for example, the study on the "Revolutionary" Étude, transposed to C-sharp minor). Two of the studies even combine two études; the most well known of these, called "Badinage," combines both the G-flat (the "Black Key" Étude of Op. 10 and the "Butterfly" étude of Op. 25).

There are no studies of this étude in the collection.

Only three pianists, Geoffrey Douglas Madge, Marc-André Hamelin and Carlo Grante, have recorded the entire set of the studies. Francesco Libetta has performed the complete set in concert and is the only pianist to do so from memory.Ivan Ilić has made a specialty of the 22 études for the left hand alone. Pianist Emanuele Delucchi has performed numbers 1 - 22 (on Chopin opus 10) in concert.

Only a handful of other pianists have ventured to record selected studies. The first was Vladimir de Pachmann, who recorded the Study on Op. 10 #12 in 1912. Others include Boris Berezovsky, Jorge Bolet, Ivan Ilić, Ian Hobson,Jacob Jettomersky, David Saperton, David Stanhope and Victor Schiøler.

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