Studies on Chopin's Études

Studies on Chopin's Études is a set of 53 arrangements of Chopin's études by Leopold Godowsky.

Quotes about Studies on Chopin's Études

 * Obviously, he assumed that pupils who were interested not only in virtuoso technique in general, but in his own (unheard of) achievement, would be bound to know his arrangements, particularly his 50 Chopin-Studien, his fifty arrangements of Chopin etudes (some of which are absolutely transcendental in their difficulty and incomparable for musical humour and inventiveness), arrangements in which not only the musical score, but also the accompanying comments amount to an exhaustive school of modern virtuoso technique-of course in the style of Godowsky. [...]Obviously, the famous arrangements of the Chopin Etudes are on a much lower artistic level than the originals. The original works of genius, these pianistic poems, these vehicles for learning music and piano by every single means which their author modestly called "etudes", Godowsky transformed into real studies, mere studies thus depriving the term "etude" of the high poetic and artistic content bestowed on it first by Chopin, then by Liszt, Scriabin, Rachmaninov, Debussy.
 * Heinrich Neuhaus, The Art of Piano Playing (1958), Ch. 1. The Artistic Image of a Musical Composition