The Grande Étude de Concert, Op 126, in E flat, was written in 1856 for the first volume of Lebert and Stark’s great Klavierschule (Piano Tutor) published in Stuttgart. A subsequent volume contained Liszt’s concert studies Gnomenreigen and Waldesrauschen, and here too Brahms’s double-sixths version of Chopin’s F minor Study saw the light of day. Op 126 is a straightforwardly tuneful study in double thirds, and it is surely a remarkable production for a composer in his sixties, however youthful he remained at heart.
from notes by Henry Roche © 2003
