Homing in on the technical dimension of piano performance, Farr wrote Etude as a birthday gift for pianist John Milbauer, with whom the composer studied at Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York.
I liked the idea of creating something fluid, and making the hands work independently with no sense of rhythmic unity between them. The lines of the left and right hands are harmonically independent as well, the right hand mostly chromatic and without a clear tonal centre, incorporating serialism with a row of ten notes while the left hand generally remains tonal throughout.
