F. Chopin - 24 Preludes [Op. 28]

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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 wrote them between 1835 and 1839, partly at Valldemossa, Mallorca, where he spent the winter of 1838–39 and where he had fled with George Sand and her children to escape the damp Paris weather. In Majorca, Chopin had a copy of Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier, and as in each of Bach's two sets of preludes and fugues, his Op. 28 set comprises a complete cycle of the major and minor keys, albeit with a different ordering.

The manuscript, which Chopin carefully prepared for publication, carries a dedication to the German pianist and composer Joseph Christoph Kessler. The French and English editions (Catelin, Wessel) were dedicated to the piano-maker and publisher Camille Pleyel, who had commissioned the work for 2,000 francs (equivalent to nearly $30,000 in present day). The German edition (Breitkopf & Härtel) was dedicated to Kessler, who ten years earlier had dedicated his own set of 24 Preludes, Op. 31, to Chopin.

Whereas the term "prelude" had hitherto been used to describe an introductory piece, Chopin's pieces stand as self-contained units, each conveying a specific idea or emotion. He thus imparted new meaning to a genre title that at the time was often associated with improvisatory "preluding". In publishing the 24 preludes together as a single opus, comprising miniatures that could either be used to introduce other music or as self-standing works, Chopin challenged contemporary attitudes regarding the worth of small musical forms.

Whereas Bach had arranged his collection of 48 preludes and fugues according to keys separated by rising semitones, Chopin's chosen key sequence is a circle of fifths, with each major key being followed by its relative minor, and so on (i.e. C major, A minor, G major, E minor, etc.). Since this sequence of related keys is much closer to common harmonic practice, it is thought that Chopin might have conceived the cycle as a single performance entity for continuous recital.[6] An opposing view is that the set was never intended for continuous performance, and that the individual preludes were indeed conceived as possible introductions for other works.

Chopin himself never played more than four of the preludes at any single public performance. Nor was this the practice for the 25 years after his death. The first pianist to program the complete set in a recital was probably Anna Yesipova for a concert in 1876. Nowadays, the complete set of Op. 28 preludes has become repertory fare, and many concert pianists have recorded the entire set, beginning with Ferruccio Busoni in 1915, when making piano rolls for the Duo-Art label. Alfred Cortot was the next pianist to record the complete preludes in 1926.

As with his other works, Chopin did not himself attach names or descriptions to any of the Op. 28 preludes, in contrast to many of Robert Schumann's and Franz Liszt's pieces.

Despite the lack of formal thematic structure, motives do appear in more than one prelude. Scholar Jeffrey Kresky has argued that Chopin's Op. 28 is more than the sum of its parts:

Individually they seem like pieces in their own right... But each works best along with the others, and in the intended order... The Chopin preludes seem to be at once twenty-four small pieces and one large one. As we note or sense at the start of each piece the various connections to and changes from the previous one, we then feel free to involve ourselves – as listeners, as players, as commentators – only with the new pleasure at hand.

— Jeffrey Kresky in A Reader's Guide to the Chopin Preludes

(the following names were given by Hans Guido von Bülow and Alfred Denis Cortot)

Intro [00:00]
I. "Reunion" in C major [00:07]
II. "Presentiment of death" in A minor [00:44]
III. "The singing of the stream" G major [02:56]
IV. "Suffocation" in E minor [03:56]
V. "Uncertainty" in D major [06:08]
VI. "Tolling bells" in B minor [06:45]
VII. "The Polish dancer" in A major [08:43]
VIII. "Desperation" in F♯ minor [09:32]
IX. "Vision" in E major [11:41]
X. "The night moth" in C♯ minor [13:07]
XI. "The dragonfly" in B major [13:41]
XII. "The duel" in G♯ minor [14:27]
XIII. "Loss" in F♯ major [15:42]
XIV. "Fear" in E♭ minor [18:57]
XV. "Raindrop" in D♭ major [19:37]
XVI. "Hades" in B♭ minor [25:06]
XVII. "Scene on the Place de Notre-Dame de Paris" in A♭ major [26:13]
XVIII. "Divine curses" in F minor [29:29]
XIX. "Heartfelt happiness" in E♭ major [30:25]
XX. "Funeral March" in C minor [31:46]
XXI. "Solitary return, to the place of confession" in B♭ major [33:25]
XXII. "Rebellion" in G minor [35:53]
XXIII. "A pleasure boat" in F major [36:39]
XXIV. "The storm" in D minor [37:56]