Philip Venables

Piano Studies

These studies have grown out of ‘The girl with the sun in her head’, a very short study piece written for the pianist Sarah Nicolls in 2003. This piece took Debussy’s Étude pour les notes répétées as its starting point (and in the current set an adapted version of it is called ‘For repeated notes’). Debussy’s inclination to make piano studies more than just exercises but musically intelligent and expressive pieces continued to influence me during the composition of the three later studies written for Daniel Browell. Most of the studies are descriptively named in the same vein as Debussy’s Études. (In the end, I deleted the original study for repeated notes from the set.)

The first three studies in this set were written for Daniel Browell for performance at the 2007 Park Lane Group Series, 8th January 2007, at the Purcell Room, Southbank Centre, London. Two more studies were added in 2011, written for Alissa Firsova, which are re-workings of two movements from Klaviertrio im Geiste.

Piano solo

Duration: c. 17 minutes

I. – For chords: weight, legato and stretching
II. – For staccato chords
III. – For tremoli
IV. – Scherzo (for tremolo)
V – Rondo (for use of pedals)

These studies can be performed in any order deemed musically sound by the performer.

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