Chopin’s Etudes, or technical studies for the piano, are more than just a means to an end, the mastery of technical difficulties. They are great music in themselves. No previous composer of real genius had deliberately written music in the form of “studies”, under that name. Of course Johann Sebastian Bach wrote much keyboard music for teaching purposes, such as his ‘Inventions’ and the 48 Preludes and Fugues, which had an enormous influence on Chopin, and Domenico Scarlatti’s ‘Esercizi’, later known as ‘Sonatas’, originally had the same purpose. But both of these early masters wrote for the harpsichord, not for the pianoforte.