Prelude

Chopin’s Prelude No. 4 in E Minor is one of the 24 preludes opus 28 for piano. By Frédéric Chopin’s request, this piece was played at his own funeral, along with Mozart’s Requiem.

The third Prelude, in G major, returns to volatility. It belongs to the category of ‘etudal’ preludes, characterised by a quick tempo, lightness and mobility. It develops a single textural idea.

In the Prelude No 9 in E major we hear the gravity of loftiness and depth. It is often called a march-hymn prelude, and it does indeed display hymn-like elements and a gravity and sublimity of character.

Chopin’s 24 Preludes, Op. 28, are a set of short pieces for the piano, one in each of the twenty-four keys, originally published in 1839. Frédéric Chopin wrote them between 1835 and 1839, partly at Valldemossa, Majorca, where he spent the winter of 1838–39.

One of Frédéric Chopin most famous masterpiece, the Raindrop prelude strikes one at first as an oasis of peace and calm. However, the transition from the bright key of D-Flat Major to the tenebrous C-Sharp Minor brings dark, gloomy, disturbing sonorities.

Chopin’s Prelude No 16 in B-Flat Minor, Presto con fuoco, is certainly the most difficult of the set. Chopin’s 24 Preludes Op. 28, are a set of short pieces for the piano, one in each of the twenty-four keys, originally published in 1839.

Chopin Prelude No 8, in F-Sharp Minor, counters the calm simplicity of the seventh with a broad stream of sonority of peculiar beauty, diffused in rising and falling waves of airy figuration. Among its admirers was Witold Lutosławski, who called it a ‘wonder’.

Prelude No 24 in D Minor is the last one of Chopin’s 24 Preludes, Op. 28, a set of short pieces for the piano, one in each of the twenty-four keys, originally published in 1839.