Kate Loder was a child-prodigy pianist from a family of musicians in Bath, in southwest, England. Loder was one of the first students at the Royal Academy of Music in London and one of Britain's brightest young virtuosi. Unfortunately, Victorian prejudice thwarted a promising career - her well-to-do husband would not allow her to perform in public. Instead, as Lady Thomson, she became an important teacher and society hostess - and she continued to composer, including these two sets of virtuoso studies that sit downstream from Chopin and Schubert. Ian Hobson, pianist and conductor, began his international career in 1981 when he won the Leeds International Piano Competition. This marks the twelfth album that Hobson has recorded for Toccata Classics.