Études is a set of eight short and extremely technically difficult piano pieces. The piano étude has a long and fascinating history; études originated in the early nineteenth century as pedagogical pieces, before being elevated, principally by Chopin, to the status of concert pieces, in which form they have continued to be written up to the present day. My Études were conceived as a contribution to – and a dialogue with – that tradition.

The ‘even-numbered’ études are all based in different ways on études by other composers: ‘Fanfares’ is modelled on the Ligeti étude of the same name; ‘Scales, Chromatic and Otherwise’ refers to Chopin’s chromatic scale étude Op. 10 No. 2; ‘In which major 2nds feature prominently, among other intervals’ is inspired by Scriabin’s Études Op. 65, which focus on dissonant intervals in the way that conventional études might focus on, say, 3^rds or octaves; and ‘d’après Monsieur Debussy’ pokes fun at Debussy’s étude ‘Pour les quartes’ in the same manner that Debussy’s étude ‘Pour les cinq doigts’ pokes fun at Czerny’s études. The ‘odd-numbered’ études do not channel such specific referents: ‘Notes, Repeated and Otherwise’ is, as the title suggests, an étude on repeated notes; the extremely slow ‘Bell Song’ is an exploration of piano resonance; ‘Two Lines’ is a musical game in which the left hand plays the three notes of an A flat major arpeggio throughout while the right hand attempts to disguise this fundamental stasis; and ‘The Weeds and the Wilderness’ is an evocation of the Scottish landscape, its title a quotation from Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem ‘Inversnaid’.

The études are free-standing pieces, and can be performed separately. I hope, however, that they also form a cohesive whole, and when performed as a set become more than the sum of their parts. Indeed, the structure is broadly teleological, with the artless serenity of the first étude gradually giving way to the virtuoso fireworks of the final two études.