The magic of Chopin etudes?

[onwan]

I was wondering, what makes the etudes so enchanting. Why is everybody (me too) like "I want to play any of it, It's Chopin etude!" "How much do I need to practice to be able play his etudes?" "How long it takes to finish this one? Which of them is harder? Which one I could start with?"
What the hell it is? Why are they so famous and favourite? The punchline?
Personaly, I found out, that even I don't play any of them, sometimes I sit down and read in the sheets and practice some beautiful part of it, and spend even a hour of playing it!

[rachmaninoff_forever]

Because they're good.

[j_menz]

Meh. I can take 'em or leave 'em.

[m1469]

What the hell it is?

They are filled with secret sauce!

[ajspiano]

They are filled with secret sauce!

lol, secret sauciness. Chopin was a romantic...

Meh. I can take 'em or leave 'em.

you could always try the "take from 'em, then leave 'em" approach.

[chopin2015]

Because they are sexy.

[pbryld]

Liszt's etudes are far better pieces of music.

[stanleyy]

Have you heard of any recording of these Etudes? If you haven't, try to get a CD or download these 24 Etudes of Chopin and listen to all of them. Even better, try to buy the book and follow the music as you listen to them. I think it is quite self explanatory. Murray Perahia once quote, these Etudes are pinnacle of piano playing. I you can play all of them WELL, you can basically play anything else. . . Perahiamade a very good recoding of all chopin Etudes, worth to have for your collection. The new younger artist Jan Lisiecki also made a good recording of these étude. Check this out

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=relmfu&v=sil49Gh1VPI

Hope you enjoy it.

[ajspiano]

Liszt's etudes are far better pieces of music.

Definitely. It's not at all subjective.

[j_menz]

Have you heard of any recording of these Etudes? If you haven't, try to get a CD or download these 24 Etudes of Chopin and listen to all of them. Even better, try to buy the book and follow the music as you listen to them. I think it is quite self explanatory.

Please do not assume my indifference stems from ignorance.

[j_menz]

Definitely. It's not at all subjective.

Oh come on, the Liszt ones aren't just etudes, they're transcendental etudes. They must be better.

[dima_76557]

Liszt's etudes are far better pieces of music.

I suspect that not even F. Liszt himself would agree with that statement.

[ajspiano]

Oh come on, the Liszt ones aren't just etudes, they're transcendental etudes. They must be better.

one of them is merely an etude in 12 exercises

[j_menz]

one of them is merely an etude in 12 exercises

And that is unlikely to be the work pbryld had in mind. Certainly not the ones I did.  Stop trying to avoid the unassailable logic of marketing!

And for those who do like the Chopin Etudes, here's a time saving way to get your fill:

[m1469]

Wow, I feel an insane kind of mad love for that.

[j_menz]

Wow, I feel an insane kind of mad love for that.

LOL, insane you would have to be. I have the score. Got all of a bar and a half into it before I thought "nah, maybe next century".

[m1469]

LOL, insane you would have to be. I have the score. Got all of a bar and a half into it before I thought "nah, maybe next century".

I would *love* the score    It would sleep under my pillow.

[j_menz]

I would *love* the score    It would sleep under my pillow.

https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/12-Etudes-in-All-the-Minor-Keys/19506612

Though not sure they'll sell it to you if they know its fate. 

[ahinton]

Marc-André Hamelin wasn't the only - or even the first - composer besides Godowsky to write a piano study based around combining Chopin's three A minor études; I did it myself in 1977 and entitled it Les Trois Chopins but, when I later discovered that the 11 or 12 missing and unpublished Chopin/Godowsky études included a version of this, I decided that the correct fate of mine was being deposited in the waste bin. Years later, when Marc-André and I were discussing his own Triple Étude after Chopin (posted above) which he had just played to me, I told him about that and he expressed regret that I had chosen to dispose of mine; he then wondered if I might ever think to try to reconstruct it from memory. After some pondering, I took him up on this and rewrote it much better than my original; this is more of a new piece than a revision of an old one and it incorporates many fleeting allusions to other Chopin études. It is dedicated to Marc-André and entitled Étude en forme de Chopin; it's very different to Marc-André's.

But to return to those "missing, presumed lost" Chopin/Godowsky études; the pianist and Godowsky scholar Charles Hopkins (1952-2007) spent many years researching for a substantial volume on Godowsky which he sadly did not live to complete and, as part of his work on it, he interviewed Godowsky's grandson (who was born in the year Godowsky died and who himself died in 2011). Charles told me that he was convinced that a box in the room where he did this contained some or all of these "missing" studies but that the box was not to be opened. So, who knows whether these pieces might surface some day?

Best,

Alistair