Transcendental Etude No. 12 in B flat minor is an étude

Étude

An étude , is an instrumental musical composition, most commonly of considerable difficulty, usually designed to provide practice material for perfecting a particular technical skill. The tradition of writing études emerged in the early 19th century with the rapidly growing popularity of the piano...

 for piano written by composer Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...

. It has the programmatic title "Chasse-Neige", (literally "snowplow") and is the 12th and last of the Transcendental Etudes

Transcendental Etudes

The Transcendental Etudes , S.139, are a series of twelve compositions for solo piano by Franz Liszt. They were published in 1852 as a revision of a more technically difficult 1837 series, which in turn were the elaboration of a set of studies written in 1826:...

. The etude is a study in tremolo

Tremolo

Tremolo, or tremolando, is a musical term that describes various trembling effects, falling roughly into two types. The first is a rapid reiteration...

s but contains many other difficulties like wide jumps and fast chromatic scales, and it requires a very gentle and soft touch in the beginning. The piece gradually builds up to a powerful climax

Climax

- Common general uses :* Climax * Climax * Climax community* Climax vegetation in an ecosystem* Sexual climax, another term for orgasm- Brand names and titles :* The Climax, a 1944 film...

. It is one of the more difficult Transcendental Etudes.

Ferruccio Busoni

Ferruccio Busoni

Ferruccio Busoni was an Italian composer, pianist, editor, writer, piano and composition teacher, and conductor.-Biography:...

stated that this is the greatest, most accurate example of program music, or 'poetised music.' He described the work as "a sublime and steady fall of snow which gradually buries landscape and people".