The musical genre of Prelude
Prelude (latin preface, prologue) is an instrumental deriving from the tradition of improvisation and keyboard music. We find the first notated preludes in the 15th c. organ tablature, and a century later also in the lute tablature. The prelude may have served to introduce liturgical chants, lead singers to the right pitch of a vocal piece, try out an instrument’s sound and technical capabilities or present adeptness and virtuosity of a performer.
Preludes in different forms bloomed in the 17th and 18th centuries with harpsichord and organ schools developing their different forms. Unmeasured preludes were written by the French harpsichordists (Louis i François Couperin, J.-H. d’Anglebert, J.-P Rammeau), while in Northern Germany preludes of an interchangeable structure of stile fantastico and fugue parts appeared in the organ schools of D. Buxtehude and N. Bruhns, among others. In the second half of the 17th century the first composers start to combine preludes and fugues (Buxtehude, J. Pachelbel). However, in the genre’s history the most significant are the works of great J.S. Bach - organ preludes and fugues, preludes in suites, inventions (originally titled Preambula) and two harpsichord cycles Das Wohltemperiete Klavier, where Bach fitted in 24 preludes and fugues in different keys and ordered them chromatically.
The Das Wohltemperiete Klavier collection had a significant impact on next generations of composers like M. Clementi, J.N. Hummel, J.B. Cramer, W.W. Würfel, W.F. Kalbrenner and I. Moscheles, who composed cycles of preludes. All those composers must have been known to Chopin, who in 1839 in Majorca, completed his Preludes, Op. 28. Chopin arranged them differently to Bach - according to the circle of fifth. F. Liszt said they were “wholly exceptional pieces”. A kaleidoscopic structure of Preludes results from the extraordinary diversity of individual miniatures in all aspects of their musical material organisation - length, structure, tempo, sonority, style or expression. One of Chopin’s students, Wilhelm Lenz described the Preludes writing that “they are on a small scale what the Etudes [Chopin’s] are on a large scale, but they are no less interesting or abundant in ideas. They may be used for teaching advanced piano students”.
A. Scriabin, C. Debussy, S. Rachmaninoff, K. Szymanowski, O. Messiaen or D. Shostakovich, among others, wrote significant collections of preludes after Chopin.
The 20th c. composers, using baroque stylistics, placed preludes in their suites (M. Ravel, A. Schönberg). Two extraordinary orchestral works where the name prelude appears are worth mentioning here. They represent different epochs and aesthetics, namely a symphonic poem Preludes by Liszt (1854) and Debussy’s impressionistic piano prelude Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (1894).
Prelude in C sharp minor, Op. 45
In addition to his famous cycle Preludes, Op. 28, Chopin composed one more piece of the genre - Prelude in C
minor. It is a separate and complete work of sophisticated harmony and sonority with a well thought out structure but unfolding casually.
Chopin’s Prelude, composed in the autumn of 1841, was dedicated to his student, Princess E. Czernicheff (Elisaweta Tschernyschewa). He then presented it to two publishers almost simultaneously. The first was Maurice Schlesinger, as he decided to return to his services after a year-long cooperation with Troupenas. The composer, in response to a conciliatory offer of Schlesinger, who must have been encouraged by the success of Preludes Op. 28, certainly negotiated more beneficial conditions of their future cooperation. The second publisher was Pietro Mechetti, who in turn asked for a piece of Chopin for his planned musical collection Album-Beethoven, whose sale was to cover the cost of erecting a Beethoven monument in Bonn. The composer initially suggested Polonaise in F minor, Op. 44, however, for Mechttie the piece was too long. Chopin selected the Prelude in the end and so justified his choice in one of the letters to Fontana: “I shall give him for the Album my today’s Prelude, as it is rightly modulated and thus appropriate to send”.
The Prelude in C minor seems to derive from the tradition of improvisation, however, in its apparent ‘disorder’ there lies a well thought out logic of a piece. It starts with a short intro based on the descending by seconds chords progression. In these four bars Chopin uses almost all pitches of the chromatic scale (11), which foreshows a ‘modulating’ structure of the Prelude. The essence of the piece follows and two layers emerge - the first based on wide spaces of broken chords and the latter, sketching the melody in the upper register and deriving form the first. The tone colour and sonority are exposed and they continuously change in wandering modulations. Following a reprise of the main theme, twinkling, freely combined four-note chords of the cadenza lead us towards the work’s end. For a short moment Chopin returns to the general contour of the main theme, only to close the piece with two C sharp minor chords.
Musicologists debate the nature of the Prelude in C minor. Its character and climate of a nocturne are often emphasised, as different from the Preludes Op. 28. On the other hand, they focus on free, improvised stylistics and modulation determining the form and changes of the keys. A varied palette of music tone colours led J.–J. Eigeldinger to formulate a thesis that this piece should be associated with the painting technique of
E. Delacroix, simply being its tonal reflection. There is no doubt that in the sounds of the Prelude one can already recognise the signs of impressionism in music.
M.M.
Literature:
Eigeldinger, Jean-Jacques, Chopin i „błękitny ton”. Interpretacja Preludium op. 45 [w:] tegoż, Świat muzyczny Chopina, Kraków 2010
Eigeldinger, J.-J, Chopin w oczach swoich uczniów, Kraków 2010
Pociej, Bohdan, Preludium, toccata i fantazja na instrumenty klawiszowe, „Ruch Muzyczny”, 1983, nr 26
Zieliński, Tadeusz A., Chopin. Życie i droga twórcza, Kraków 1998
Principles adopted for the main text of Prelude in C sharp minor, Op. 45
We have adopted GE as the main source, based most probably on the later and better prepared Chopin’s autograph [A2], compared with FE1 based on a different autograph [A1]. We include the edits of printing errors in the teaching copy.