Abstract: The article is devoted to the study of the etude genre, which in the work of domestic composers-pianists of the second half of the twentieth – early twenty-first centuries became an experiment and capture of a personal artistic picture of the world. The focus of the article is two opuses by contemporary pianist composers М. Kollontai and E. Chernov. As a result of the cycle of analysis of etudes op. 55 Kollontai, the author comes to the conclusion that this work continues the line of Liszt’s transcendentalism. Particular attention in this cycle is aimed at considering religious and spiritual themes expressed at the verbal level. The composer’s artistic comments on the etudes, the epigraph from the poems of the poet and Catholic priest Geselle, the afterword to the plays, explain and explore the conceptual field of the program composition, which embodied New Testament stories related to the way of the cross of Jesus Christ on earth. For the piano cycle – Nine etudes-pictures op. 11 by Chernov, nine etudes-pictures op. 39 Rachmaninoff. In the course of the analysis, it is noted that the cycle of etudes by Chernov is characterized by the following features: a concentric type of composition with an aspiration to the finale, the presence of a lyrical core, the development and interweaving of two psychological modes (lyrical and dramatic), which gives the cycle integrity and harmony, paired grouping of etudes according to the principle of contrast, the presence of leitmotifs, as well as leitgenres (nocturne and waltz) that permeate the piano cycle. The article emphasizes the idea that interest in such a genre of improvisational mix as «etude-fantasy» is found mainly in the legacy of virtuoso composers-pianists of the 19th-20th centuries, striving in their work to prolong romantic traditions.