In György Ligeti’s own words “… composing highly virtuosic piano études … was, above all, my own inadequate piano technique”. Such is the complexity of these Etude scores many were deemed impossible to play and were originally conceived for the mechanical piano only. In this groundbreaking recording Idil Biret gives her personal interpretation, laying bare the rhythmic and metrical subtleties of Etude XIVa for the first time. Numerous influences are at work in these Etudes. The étude cycles of Chopin and Debussy, each vital to the evolution of the piano and its literature, are an inevitable presence, as are the keyboard techniques of Scarlatti and Schumann. Yet these traditional influences are combined with African poly-rhythms and American jazz to produce Ligeti’s own unique musical voice.