Preludes

Preludes. Fryderyk Chopin. , 'If Chopin had composed nothing but the preludes, he would still deserve immortality' , Anton Rubinstein, Copin completed his 24 Preludes, Op. 28 in the years 1838-1839, but the ideas probably date back to earlier years, possibly even to 1831. The final stage in his work on these compositions coincided with the start of his liaison with George Sand, the period of his journey with her and her children to Majorca. The model for Chopin's cycle of preludes was Johann Sebastian Bach's Das Wohltemperierte Klavier , two famous sets of 24 preludes and figures in all the keys., Yet Chopin's preludes do not serve as introductions to other compositions. They are ordered according to successive keys around the circle of fifths, and the cycle is fused by a motif of a second. Yet individual preludes represent separate compositions, each of its own character, and the cycle when performed as a whole, reveals the precision with which the composer chose the moods and employed a sense of contrast. Although Chopin did not give titles to his preludes, they began to be ascribed poetical or illustrative content, as in the case of the famous Prelude in D flat major, known as the 'Raindrop'.