Liszt’s musical precocity can be measured by the fact that at the age of thirteen he had begun work on what was to become his Op.6, the Etude en douze exercices. After later revisions this became the Grandes Études of 1837 and, with simplifications, the Études d’exécution transcendante of 1851. The monumental 1837 studies were composed after years of travel and at a time when Liszt’s virtuoso status was near its zenith. He transformed the earlier prototype studies, through the prism of his own transcendental technique, into etudes of coruscating technical difficulty and extraordinarily vivid characterisation.