Transcendental Études in the context of List of compositions by Franz Liszt

There is a long tradition in classical music of writing music in sets of pieces that cover all the major and minor keys of the chromatic scale. These sets typically consist of 24 pieces, one for each of the major and minor keys (sets that comprise all the enharmonic variants include 30 pieces).

Examples include Johann Sebastian Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier and Frédéric Chopin's 24 Preludes, Op. 28. Such sets are often organized as preludes and fugues or designated as preludes or études. Some composers have restricted their sets to cover only the 12 major keys or the 12 minor keys; or only the flat keys (Franz Liszt's Transcendental Études) or the sharp keys (Sergei Lyapunov's Op. 11 set). In yet another type, a single piece may progressively modulate through a set of tonalities, as occurs in Ludwig van Beethoven's 2 Preludes through all the Major Keys, Op. 39.

The 12 Études d’exécution transcendante (English: 12 Transcendental Études), Op. 11, are a series of 12 études written from 1897 to 1905 by Sergei Lyapunov. Lyapunov intended them to be the posthumous continuation of Franz Liszt's uncompleted work Transcendental Études, having finished only the first 12 before his death in 1886. The work is also dedicated to Liszt, with the twelfth étude being named after the composer as well.

Inspired by one of his three teachers during his time at Moscow Conservatory Karl Klindworth, a former student of Liszt, along with being heavily influenced and artistically guided by Mily Balakirev, the main ideologue of The Five, these Études use the full gamut of nationalist techniques: From folk-songs and church bells, to Caucasian melodies and sumptuous melodicism.