Studies on Chopin's Études


Studies on Chopin's Études is a set of 53 arrangements of Chopin's études by Leopold Godowsky. 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 put the original right-hand part into the left hand; several others are for the left hand alone. Two of the studies even combine two études; the most well known of these, called "Badinage," combines both the G.

The Studies

Opus 10

; Opus 10 No. 1
; Opus 10 No. 2
; Opus 10 No. 3
; Opus 10 No. 4
; Opus 10 No. 5
; Opus 10 No. 6
; Opus 10 No. 7
; Opus 10 No. 8
; Opus 10 No. 9
; Opus 10 No. 10
; Opus 10 No. 11
; Opus 10 No. 12
; Opus 25 No. 1
; Opus 25 No. 2
; Opus 25 No. 3
; Opus 25 No. 4
; Opus 25 No. 5
; Opus 25 No. 6
; Opus 25 No. 7
There are no studies of this étude in the collection.
; Opus 25 No. 8
; Opus 25 No. 9
; Opus 25 No. 10
; Opus 25 No. 11
; Opus 25 No. 12
; Nouvelle Étude No. 1
; Nouvelle Étude No. 2
; Nouvelle Étude No. 3
Only four pianists, Geoffrey Douglas Madge, Carlo Grante, Marc-André Hamelin and Emanuele Delucchi have recorded the entire set of the studies. Francesco Libetta, Carlo Grante and Emanuele Delucchi have performed the complete set in concert, but only Libetta has done so from memory. Francesco Libetta performed them again in Miami on July 7, 2018, in two recitals in the same day, one in the afternoon and one in the evening, also all of them by memory. Ivan Ilić has made a speciality of the 22 études for the left hand alone.
Only a few other pianists have ventured to record selected studies. The first was Vladimir de Pachmann, who recorded the Study on Op. 10, No. 12 in 1912. Others include Boris Berezovsky, Jorge Bolet, Ian Hobson, Ivan Ilić, David Saperton, Victor Schiøler, Jacob Jettomersky, and David Stanhope.