Preludes Op. 28 (Chopin) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....

wrote a number of preludes

Prelude (music)

A prelude is a short piece of music, the form of which may vary from piece to piece. The prelude can be thought of as a preface. It may stand on its own or introduce another work...

for piano solo.

24 Preludes, Op. 28

Chopin's 24 Preludes, Op. 28, are a set of short pieces for the piano

Piano

The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...

, one in each of the twenty-four key

Key (music)

In music theory, the term key is used in many different and sometimes contradictory ways. A common use is to speak of music as being "in" a specific key, such as in the key of C major or in the key of F-sharp. Sometimes the terms "major" or "minor" are appended, as in the key of A minor or in the...

s, originally published in 1839 and dedicated to Joseph Christoph Kessler

Joseph Christoph Kessler

Joseph Christoph Kessler , also seen as Kötzler, was a German pianist and composer who was active mostly in the Austrian Empire. His études, nocturnes, variations, preludes and bagatelles were praised by such people as Franz Liszt, Sigismond Thalberg, Ignaz Moscheles and Friedrich Kalkbrenner, and...

, a composer of piano studies during Chopin's time. Ten years earlier, Kessler had dedicated his own set of 24 Preludes, Op. 31, to Chopin. Although the term prelude is generally used to describe an introductory piece, Chopin's stand as self-contained units, each conveying a specific idea or emotion.

The Op. 28 preludes were commissioned by the piano-maker and publisher Camille Pleyel for 2,000 francs. Chopin wrote them between 1835 and 1839, partly at Valldemossa

Valldemossa

Valldemossa or Valldemosa is a village and municipality on the island of Majorca, part of the Spanish autonomous community of the Balearic Islands....

, Majorca, where he spent the winter of 1838–39 and where he had fled with George Sand

George Sand

Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, later Baroness Dudevant , best known by her pseudonym George Sand , was a French novelist and memoirist.-Life:...

and her children to escape the damp Paris weather.

Criticism

Due to their brevity and apparent lack of formal structure, the Op. 28 preludes caused some consternation among critics at the time of their publication. No prelude is longer than 90 measures

Bar (music)

In musical notation, a bar is a segment of time defined by a given number of beats of a given duration. Typically, a piece consists of several bars of the same length, and in modern musical notation the number of beats in each bar is specified at the beginning of the score by the top number of a...

(No. 17), and the shortest, No. 9, is a mere 12 measures. Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....

said: "They are sketches, beginnings of études, or, so to speak, ruins, individual eagle pinions, all disorder and wild confusions." Franz Liszt's opinion, however, was more positive: "Chopin's Preludes are compositions of an order entirely apart... they are poetic preludes, analogous to those of a great contemporary poet, who cradles the soul in golden dreams..."

More recently, the preludes have been the subject of more positive criticism. Musicologist Henry Finck said that "if all piano music in the world were to be destroyed, excepting one collection, my vote should be cast for Chopin's Preludes." Biographer Jeremy Nicholas

Jeremy Nicholas (writer)

Jeremy Nicholas is an actor, writer, broadcaster, lyricist and musician. He is President of the Jerome K. Jerome Society.He was born on 20 September 1947 in Wellington, Shropshire, raised in Stafford and educated at Wycliffe College and the Birmingham School of Speech Training and Dramatic Art...

writes that "Even on their own, the 24 Preludes would have ensured Chopin’s claim to immortality."

Despite the lack of formal thematic structure, motives

Motif (music)

In music, a motif or motive is a short musical idea, a salient recurring figure, musical fragment or succession of notes that has some special importance in or is characteristic of a composition....

do appear in more than one prelude. Scholar Jeffrey Kresky has argued that Op. 28 is more than the sum of its parts:
The Op. 28 preludes have become standard fare for pianists of all types, and many have recorded the set, beginning with Alfred Cortot

Alfred Cortot

Alfred Denis Cortot was a Franco-Swiss pianist and conductor. He is one of the most renowned 20th-century classical musicians, especially valued for his poetic insight in Romantic period piano works, particularly those of Chopin and Schumann.-Early life and education:Born in Nyon, Vaud, in the...

in 1926.

Like Chopin's other works, the Op. 28 preludes are not named or further described, in contrast to many of Schumann's and 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...

's pieces.

Preludes

Agitato – C major
Lento – A minor
Vivace – G major
Largo
Prelude, Op. 28, No. 4 (Chopin)
The Prelude Op. 28, No. 4, by Frédéric Chopin, is considered by many to be one of the most famous of the Chopin preludes. By Chopin's request, the piece was played at his own funeral, along with Mozart's Requiem.-Name:...

– E minor
Molto allegro – D major
Lento assai – B minor
Andantino – A major
Molto agitato – F-sharp minor
Largo – E major
Molto allegro – C-sharp minor
Vivace – B major
Presto – G-sharp minor
Lento – F-sharp major
Allegro – E-flat minor
Sostenuto
Prelude, Op. 28, No. 15 (Chopin)
The Prelude Op. 28, No. 15, by Frédéric Chopin, known as the "Raindrop" prelude, is one of the 24 Chopin preludes. Usually performed between five and seven minutes in length, the sostenuto is also the longest of the preludes...

– D-flat major ("Raindrop Prelude")
Presto con fuoco
Prelude, Op. 28, No. 16 (Chopin)
The Prelude Op. 28, No. 16, the "Hades" prelude, by Frédéric Chopin, is considered by many to be the most difficult of the Chopin preludes. Hans von Bulow dubbed this prelude, "Hades." It was composed between 1836 and 1839, published in 1839 and dedicated to Camille Pleyel who commissioned the...

– B-flat minor
Allegretto – A-flat major
Molto allegro – F minor
Vivace – E-flat major
Largo
Prelude, Op. 28, No. 20 (Chopin)
The Prelude Op. 28, No. 20, in C minor by Frédéric Chopin has been dubbed the "Funeral March" by Hans von Bülow but is commonly known as the "Chord Prelude" due to its slow progression of quarter note chords....

– C minor
Cantabile – B-flat major
Molto agitato – G minor
Moderato – F major
Allegro appassionato – D minor

Description and analysis

The following epithets are as given by Hans von Bülow

Hans von Bülow

Hans Guido Freiherr von Bülow was a German conductor, virtuoso pianist, and composer of the Romantic era. He was one of the most famous conductors of the 19th century, and his activity was critical for establishing the successes of several major composers of the time, including Richard...

. They are not official, and certainly not named by Chopin, but are cited in various sources as mnemonics. Only No. 15 "Raindrop" is universally used, but No. 20 is often referred to as the "Chord" prelude.

Prelude	Nickname	Description
1	Reunion	marked agitato, is short and uniform with its triplet-semi-quaver figuration
2	Presentiment of Death	an immediate contrast, with a slow melody over a fixed accompaniment of four-note chords played two eighth notes at a time
3	Thou Art So Like a Flower	marked vivace Vivace Vivace is Italian for "lively" and "vivid". It is pronounced in the International Phonetic Alphabet.Vivace is used as an Italian musical term indicating a movement that is in a lively mood .... and has a running semiquaver bass part throughout
4	Suffocation Prelude, Op. 28, No. 4 (Chopin) The Prelude Op. 28, No. 4, by Frédéric Chopin, is considered by many to be one of the most famous of the Chopin preludes. By Chopin's request, the piece was played at his own funeral, along with Mozart's Requiem.-Name:...	was played at his funeral. It consists of a slow melody in the right hand, that masterfully prolongs tonic resolution, and repeated block chords in the left hand, that descend chromatically. It is incorporated in conductor Benjamin Zander Benjamin Zander Benjamin Zander is an American conductor from the United Kingdom.-External links:* -Interviews: * * *... 's TED TED (conference) TED is a global set of conferences owned by the private non-profit Sapling Foundation, formed to disseminate "ideas worth spreading".... Talk on music and passion.
5	Uncertainty	contains exuberant ostinati Ostinato In music, an ostinato is a motif or phrase, which is persistently repeated in the same musical voice. An ostinato is always a succession of equal sounds, wherein each note always has the same weight or stress. The repeating idea may be a rhythmic pattern, part of a tune, or a complete melody in...
6	Tolling Bells	(also played at Chopin's funeral) features its melancholy melody primarily in the left hand
7	The Polish Dancer	is written in the style of a mazurka Mazurka The mazurka is a Polish folk dance in triple meter, usually at a lively tempo, and with accent on the third or second beat.-History:The folk origins of the mazurek are two other Polish musical forms—the slow machine... , in 3/4 time. It is the basis of Federico Mompou Federico Mompou Frederic Mompou i Dencausse was a Catalan Spanish composer and pianist. He is best known for his solo piano music and his songs.-Life:... 's Variations on a Theme of Chopin Variations on a Theme of Chopin (Mompou) Not to be confused with the work with the same title by RachmaninoffThe Variations on a Theme of Chopin is a work for solo piano by Federico Mompou. It is based on the Prelude in A major, Op. 28, No. 7, by Frédéric Chopin....
8	Desperation	molto agitato, is considered one of the most difficult in the set, featuring continuous thirty-second note Thirty-second note In music, a thirty-second note or demisemiquaver is a note played for 1/32 of the duration of a whole note... figuration in the right hand, with semiquaver triplets (alternating with quavers) in the left hand. The entire piece employs a ceaseless figuration of polyrhythms.
9	Vision	a harmonically dense piece with a low "plodding" bass line; with 12 bars Bar (music) In musical notation, a bar is a segment of time defined by a given number of beats of a given duration. Typically, a piece consists of several bars of the same length, and in modern musical notation the number of beats in each bar is specified at the beginning of the score by the top number of a... , it is the shortest in the collection
10	The Night Moth	molto allegro, is short and light, with alternating triplet and non-triplet semiquavers in the right hand, over arpeggiato chords in the left
11	The Dragonfly	is in 6/8 time and is similarly brisk, with continuous quavers
12	The Duel	presents a technical challenge with its rapid hold-and-release of quavers against crotchets in the right hand, involving much chromatic movement
13	Loss	lento, is one of the longest preludes and features an A B A structure with continuous single-note quaver movement in the left hand and chords and melody in the right
14	Fear	recalls Prelude No. 1 in its shortness and textural uniformity
15	Raindrop Prelude, Op. 28, No. 15 (Chopin) The Prelude Op. 28, No. 15, by Frédéric Chopin, known as the "Raindrop" prelude, is one of the 24 Chopin preludes. Usually performed between five and seven minutes in length, the sostenuto is also the longest of the preludes...	is the longest of the twenty-four. The main melody is repeated three times; the melody in the middle, however, is much more dark and dramatic. The key signature switches between D-flat major and C-sharp minor.
16	Hades Prelude, Op. 28, No. 16 (Chopin) The Prelude Op. 28, No. 16, the "Hades" prelude, by Frédéric Chopin, is considered by many to be the most difficult of the Chopin preludes. Hans von Bulow dubbed this prelude, "Hades." It was composed between 1836 and 1839, published in 1839 and dedicated to Camille Pleyel who commissioned the...	starts with six heavily accented chords before progressing to an impromptu Impromptu An impromptu is a free-form musical composition with the character of an ex tempore improvisation as if prompted by the spirit of the moment, usually for a solo instrument, such as piano... -like passage in the right hand. The left hand mainly supports the right hand and repeats the same melody repeatedly. This piece is considered by many to be the most difficult of the set.
17	A Scene on the Place de Notre-Dame de Paris	is one of the longest and the favourite of some musicians including Clara Schumann Clara Schumann Clara Schumann was a German musician and composer, considered one of the most distinguished pianists of the Romantic era... . Mendelssohn Felix Mendelssohn Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text... wrote of it, "I love it! I cannot tell you how much or why; except perhaps that it is something which I could never at all have written."
18	Suicide	is suggestive of a mortal struggle. The technical challenges lie chiefly in the irregular timing of the three runs, each faster than its predecessor, played simultaneously by each hand one octave apart. A fortissimo five-octave arpeggio echoes downward into the depths of the bass registers, where the final struggle takes place and culminates with the double-fortissimo chord finale.
19	Heartfelt Happiness	vivace, consists of widely spaced continuous triplet-quaver movement in both hands, which some pianists consider to rival the difficulty of No. 8 and No. 16.
20	Funeral March Prelude, Op. 28, No. 20 (Chopin) The Prelude Op. 28, No. 20, in C minor by Frédéric Chopin has been dubbed the "Funeral March" by Hans von Bülow but is commonly known as the "Chord Prelude" due to its slow progression of quarter note chords....	is short, with slow majestic crotchet Quarter note A quarter note or crotchet is a note played for one quarter of the duration of a whole note . Often people will say that a crotchet is one beat, however, this is not always correct, as the beat is indicated by the time signature of the music; a quarter note may or may not be the beat... chords in the right hand predominating, against crotchet octaves in the left. It is often called the "Chord" prelude. It was originally written in two sections of four measures, although Chopin later added a repeat of the last four measures at a softer level, with an expressive swell before the final cadence. It has been used as a theme for variations by Ferruccio Busoni Ferruccio Busoni Ferruccio Busoni was an Italian composer, pianist, editor, writer, piano and composition teacher, and conductor.-Biography:... , and later (without the repeated bars) by Sergei Rachmaninoff Sergei Rachmaninoff Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music... in his Variations on a Theme of Chopin Variations on a Theme of Chopin (Rachmaninoff) Not to be confused with a work with the same title by Federico Mompou or Ferruccio Busoni's work of the same title.Variations on a Theme of Chopin , Op. 22, is a group of 22 variations on Frédéric Chopin's Prelude in C minor Not to be confused with a work with the same title by Federico Mompou or... , a set of 22 variations in a wide range of keys, tempos and lengths.
21	Sunday	is marked cantabile Cantabile Cantabile is a musical term meaning literally "singable" or "songlike" . It has several meanings in different contexts. In instrumental music, it indicates a particular style of playing designed to imitate the human voice. For 18th century composers, the term is often used synonymously with... , and features an easy melody in the right hand; the left has continuous doubled quavers characterized by chromatic movement, including chromatic nonharmonic tone Nonchord tone A nonchord tone, nonharmonic tone, or non-harmony note is a note in a piece of music which is not a part of the implied harmony that is described by the other notes sounding at the time... s, taken up by the right hand also in the latter half of the piece
22	Impatience	molto agitato, is in 6/8 time; it begins with a characteristic dotted rhythm (quaver, dotted quaver, semiquaver) that Scriabin Alexander Scriabin Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin was a Russian composer and pianist who initially developed a lyrical and idiosyncratic tonal language inspired by the music of Frédéric Chopin. Quite independent of the innovations of Arnold Schoenberg, Scriabin developed an increasingly atonal musical system,... was later to make his own, in his early preludes that are perhaps the most important to emulate this genre of Chopin's
23	A Pleasure Boat	is spacious and melodic in the left hand, with running semiquavers throughout in the right
24	The Storm	opens with a thundering five-note pattern in the left hand. Throughout the piece, the left hand continues this pattern as the right hand plays a powerful melody punctuated by trills Trill (music) The trill is a musical ornament consisting of a rapid alternation between two adjacent notes, usually a semitone or tone apart, which can be identified with the context of the trill.... , scales Musical scale In music, a scale is a sequence of musical notes in ascending and descending order. Most commonly, especially in the context of the common practice period, the notes of a scale will belong to a single key, thus providing material for or being used to conveniently represent part or all of a musical... (including a rapid descending chromatic scale in thirds Third (chord) In music, the third factor of a chord is the note or pitch two scale degrees above the root or tonal center. When the third is the bass note, or lowest note, of the expressed triad, the chord is in first inversion .... ), and arpeggio Arpeggio An arpeggio is a musical technique where notes in a chord are played or sung in sequence, one after the other, rather than ringing out simultaneously... s. The piece closes with three booming unaccompanied notes – the lowest D on the piano.

Comparisons

Chopin's Op. 28 preludes have been compared to Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...

's preludes in The Well-Tempered Clavier

The Well-Tempered Clavier

The Well-Tempered Clavier , BWV 846–893, is a collection of solo keyboard music composed by Johann Sebastian Bach...

. However, each of Bach's preludes leads to a fugue

Fugue

In music, a fugue is a compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject that is introduced at the beginning in imitation and recurs frequently in the course of the composition....

in the same key, and Bach's pieces are arranged, in each of the work's two volumes, in ascending chromatic

Chromatic scale

The chromatic scale is a musical scale with twelve pitches, each a semitone apart. On a modern piano or other equal-tempered instrument, all the half steps are the same size...

order (with major preceding parallel minor

Parallel key

In music, parallel keys are the major and minor scales that have the same tonic. A major and minor scale sharing the same tonic are said to be in a parallel relationship...

), while Chopin's are arranged in a circle of fifths

Circle of fifths

In music theory, the circle of fifths shows the relationships among the 12 tones of the chromatic scale, their corresponding key signatures, and the associated major and minor keys...

(with major preceding relative minor

Relative key

In music, relative keys are the major and minor scales that have the same key signatures. A major and minor scale sharing the same key signature are said to be in a relative relationship...

). Chopin is known to have studied Bach's music, although he is not known to have performed it in public.

Harold C. Schonberg

Harold C. Schonberg

Harold Charles Schonberg was an American music critic and journalist, most notably for The New York Times. He was the first music critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism...

, in The Great Pianists, writes: "It also is hard to escape the notion that Chopin was very familiar with Hummel

Johann Nepomuk Hummel

Johann Nepomuk Hummel or Jan Nepomuk Hummel was an Austrian composer and virtuoso pianist. His music reflects the transition from the Classical to the Romantic musical era.- Life :...

's now-forgotten Op. 67, composed in 1815 – a set of twenty-four preludes in all major and minor keys, starting with C major." As Schonberg says: "the openings of the Hummel A minor

Piano Concerto No. 2 (Hummel)

Johann Nepomuk Hummel's Piano Concerto No. 2 Op. 85 in A minor was written in 1816 and published in Vienna in 1821 . Unlike his earlier piano concerti, which closely followed the model of Mozart's, the A minor concerto, like the B minor Concerto Op...

and Chopin E minor

Piano Concerto No. 1 (Chopin)

The Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, Op. 11, is a piano concerto written by Frédéric Chopin in 1830. It was first performed on 11 October of that year, in Warsaw, with the composer as soloist, during one of his "farewell" concerts before leaving Poland....

concertos are too close to be coincidental." The dedicatee of Chopin's set, Joseph Christoph Kessler

Joseph Christoph Kessler

, also used the circle of fifths in his 24 Études, Op. 20, which were dedicated to Hummel.

Prelude No. 25

The Prelude in C-sharp minor, Op. 45 (sometimes listed as Prelude No. 25), was composed in 1841. It was dedicated to Princess E. Czernicheff, and contains widely extending basses and highly expressive and effective chromatic modulations over a rather uniform thematic basis.

Prelude No. 26

The untitled Presto con leggierezza was composed in 1834 as a gift for Pierre Wolff and published in Geneva in 1918. Known as Prelude No. 26, the piece is very short and generally bright in tone.

"Devil's Trill" Prelude (No. 27)

A further prelude exists. It is in E-flat minor and has been subtitled "Devil's Trill" by Jeffrey Kallberg, a professor of music history at the University of Pennsylvania

University of Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...

. Kallberg gave it this nickname for its similarities to Giuseppe Tartini

Giuseppe Tartini

Giuseppe Tartini was an Italian baroque composer and violinist.-Biography:Tartini was born in Piran, a town on the peninsula of Istria, in the Republic of Venice to Gianantonio – native of Florence – and Caterina Zangrando, a descendant of one of the oldest aristocratic Piranian families.It...

's violin sonata known as The Devil's Trill

Devil's Trill Sonata

The Violin Sonata in G minor, more famously known as the Devil's Trill Sonata is a famous work for solo violin by Giuseppe Tartini , famous for being extremely technically demanding, even today....

, Tartini being a likely influence on Chopin. The original signature was hastily scrawled (more so than usual of Chopin's original manuscripts). Chopin left this piece uncompleted and seems to have discarded it; while he worked on it during his stay on Majorca, the E-flat minor prelude that ultimately formed part of the Op. 28 set is a completely unrelated piece. Kallberg's realisation of the prelude from Chopin's almost illegible sketches goes no further than where Chopin left off. The piece had its first public performance in July 2002 at the Newport Music Festival

Newport Music Festival

Newport Music Festival is a classical music festival that takes place in Newport, Rhode Island.It was founded in 1969 as a summer season of the Metropolitan Opera. The outdoor venue was not conducive to classical music performance, and instead the grand rooms of the stately Newport mansions were...

in Newport, Rhode Island with the pianist Alain Jacquon.

Sources

Leontsky, Jan: Interpreting Chopin. 24 Preludes, Op. 28. Analysis, comments and interpretive choices. Tarnhelm editions.

External links

Analysis of Chopin's Preludes at Chopin: the poet of the piano
Detailed study guide of Chopin's preludes, with sheet music and recordings
24 Préludes Op. 28 sheet music available at Musopen.com
BBC Discovering Music Audio Program covering Chopin's Opus 28 Preludes
Prelude No. 4 in E minor and No. 9 in E major (Shockwave required) in hypermedia presentation at the BinAural Collaborative Hypertext

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