The 12 Etudes for piano are conceived as concert etudes. Stylistically, they are oriented towards classical modernism, but influences from jazz, Latin (and even rock) are also present. In Etude No. 7, for example, one can definitely recognise a post-Romantic influence, but on closer listening salsa rhythms are also perceptible throughout. In Etudes No. 2 and 3, on the other hand, classical modernism can be heard, while in others jazz rock (No. 10), ragtime (No. 6) and other influences are discernible. Finally, as an 'encore', there is Etude No. 12 'The Hornet' so that this insect, apart from the omnipresent bumblebee, is given due attention for once.

Thalberg (1812-1871) was a renowned piano virtuoso and composer. His technical specialty, since widely imitated, was to play a central melody with the thumb of either hand and surrounding it with brilliant arpeggios and arabesques.

Sigismond Thalberg was one of the most famous and most successful piano composers of the 19th century. During the 1830s and the 1840s his style was a major force in European piano-playing. He was greatly in fashion and was imitated by others. In 1852, Wilhelm von Lenz wrote:

'The piano playing of the present day, to tell the truth, consists only of Thalberg simple, Thalberg amended, and Thalberg exaggerated; scratch what is written for the piano, and you will find Thalberg.'

Ten years later, in 1862, a London correspondent of the Revue et gazette musicale wrote:

'Nobody in fact has been so much imitated; his manner has been parodied, exaggerated, twisted, tortured, and it may have happened more than once to all of us to curse this Thalbergian school'.

Expressions like "exaggerated", "twisted" and "tortured" indicate that some contemporaries were starting to feel jaded of his style. It was at this time when Thalberg's career as composer and as virtuoso came to an end.

In the late 19th century, Thalberg's fame had come to depend on his association with a single piano technique, the 'three-hand effect'. Carl Friedrich Weitzmann, in his Geschichte des Klavierspiels (1879), wrote about this.

'His bravura pieces, fantasies on melodies from Rossini's Mos� and La donna del lago, on motifs from Bellini's Norma and on Russian folk-songs, became extraordinarily popular through his own, brilliant execution; however, they treat their subjects always in one and the same way, [namely] ... to let the tones of a melody be played in the medium octave of the keyboard now by the thumb of the right, now of the left hand, while the rest of the fingers are executing arpeggios filling the whole range of the keyboard'.

First published in the 1950s, Dorothy Pilling?s Harmonization of Melodies series stands the test of time as a resource for students wishing to develop facility in harmonisation at the piano. Prospective candidates for class teaching and general musicianship diplomas will find these books particularly useful in preparation for the spontaneous keyboard tests that are a feature of these examinations.
The books contain a number of melodies designed for a ?block-chord? style of harmonisation in order to test the student?s accuracy in the reproduction of different progressions; but many pianistic styles are also included to encourage initiative and imagination.