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An étude (/ ˈeɪtjuːd /; French: [e.tyd]) or study is an instrumental musical composition, usually short, designed to provide practice material for perfecting a particular musical skill. The tradition of writing études emerged in the early 19th century with the rapidly growing popularity of the piano.
The education system in France can be traced back to the Roman Empire. Schools may have operated continuously from the later empire to the early Middle Ages in some towns in southern France. The school system was modernized during the French Revolution, but roughly in the 18th and early 19th century debates ranged on the role of religion.
Étude, in music, originally a study or technical exercise, later a complete and musically intelligible composition exploring a particular technical problem in an esthetically satisfying manner. Although a number of didactic pieces date from earlier times, including vocal solfeggi and keyboard works.
In French, the word étudiant(e) is usually reserved for university-level students, and collège and lycée students are referred to as élèves (pupils or students in English). The curriculum (programme officiel) is standardized for all French public institutions.
From 1806, Napoleon overhauled the whole of the French system of higher education, which was now called the Université impériale, and created five faculties in Paris whose aim was to train secondary school and seminary teachers: the faculties of science, arts, theology, law and medicine.
An étude (said "ay-TOOD"; French for study) is a short piece of music written to help the player to become a better player. They are usually quite difficult. Sometimes they are just called "studies". Composers such as the pianist Carl Czerny and the violinist Otakar Ševčik wrote lots of études.
Established in 1965 in the Department of French Studies (renamed in 2003 Department of Literatures in French Language) at the University of Montreal, Études françaises is a literary critics and theory journal addressing an international readership, its mandate encompassing the whole of French-language literatures history and territory.
