IC 76003 Booklet - Ivory Classics

e given exercises in which he will find proper food for his ears and his soul
lest he be bored to death. I am disturbed because there are no beautiful exercises
for beginners. A virtuoso has everything open to him; when he is bored
by exercises, he can reach out for the most beautiful music. But a poor fellow
who cannot play anything except exercises, whose fingers are as though
tied, needs beautiful exercises that will save him from becoming disgusted
with music. I have tried to write something of this kind, but I haven’t been
successful, because for the beginner anything is too difficult.”
Pianists began recording Chopin’s etudes in the nineteenth century. The
earliest were probably the random samplings of them by a variety of pianists
(including Horowitz) who recorded single movements on the pneumatic
Welte-Mignon recording system, perfected in the 1890s. In terms of fidelity,
the device far exceeded all other approaches to piano roles, including especially
the gramophone and cylinder records of the period. But the first
pianist to record the complete opus 10 and 25 was Wilhelm Backhaus.
The opus 10 etudes were published as a set in 1833 and dedicated to
Franz Liszt, whom Chopin considered their best interpreter. No. 1 is a study
for extended right-hand arpeggios, often with a stretch of six notes between
adjacent fingers. No. 2 explores chromatic scales for the weak fingers 3, 4
and 5 of the right hand. Chopin said of No. 3 that he had never written so
beautiful a melody. It involves playing three continuous voices with the two
hands, and has been called a study in expression. The sheer velocity and
pyrotechnics of No. 4, with frequent shifts of the melody between the hands,
make it one of the most exciting of the studies. Apart from a single white
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