A
prelude is a short piece of
musicMusic is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
, the
formThe term musical form refers to the overall structure or plan of a piece of music, and it describes the layout of a composition as divided into sections...
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. While, during the Baroque era, for example, it may have served as an introduction to succeeding movements of a work that were usually longer and more complex, it may also have been a stand alone piece of work during the Romantic era. It generally features a small number of rhythmic and melodic
motifIn 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....
s that recur through the piece. Stylistically, the prelude is improvisatory in nature. The prelude can also refer to an
overtureOverture in music is the term originally applied to the instrumental introduction to an opera...
, particularly to those seen in an
operaOpera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
or an
oratorioAn oratorio is a large musical composition including an orchestra, a choir, and soloists. Like an opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias...
.
History
The very first preludes were
luteLute can refer generally to any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back, or more specifically to an instrument from the family of European lutes....
compositions of the
RenaissanceThe Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
era. They were free improvisations and served as brief introductions to larger pieces of music or particular larger and more complex movements; lutenists also used them to test the instrument or the acoustics of the room before performing.
KeyboardA keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
preludes started appearing in the 17th century in
FranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
:
unmeasured preludeUnmeasured or non-measured prelude is a prelude in which the duration of each note is left to the performer. Typically the term is used for 17th century harpsichord compositions that are written without rhythm or metre indications, although various composers of the Classical music era were...
s, in which the
duration of each noteIn music notation, a note value indicates the relative duration of a note, using the color or shape of the note head, the presence or absence of a stem, and the presence or absence of flags/beams/hooks/tails....
is left to the performer, were used as introductory movements in
harpsichordA harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...
suiteIn music, a suite is an ordered set of instrumental or orchestral pieces normally performed in a concert setting rather than as accompaniment; they may be extracts from an opera, ballet , or incidental music to a play or film , or they may be entirely original movements .In the...
s.
Louis CouperinLouis Couperin was a French Baroque composer and performer. He was born in Chaumes-en-Brie and moved to Paris in 1650–51 with the help of Jacques Champion de Chambonnières. Couperin worked as organist of the Church of St. Gervais in Paris and as musician at the court...
(c.1626–1661) was the first composer to embrace the genre, and harpsichord preludes were used until the first half of the 18th century by numerous composers including
Jean-Henri d'AnglebertJean-Henri d'Anglebert was a French composer, harpsichordist and organist. He was one of the foremost keyboard composers of his day.-Life:...
(1629–1691),
Élisabeth Jacquet de la GuerreÉlisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre was a French musician, harpsichordist and composer.-Life and works:...
(1665–1729),
François CouperinFrançois Couperin was a French Baroque composer, organist and harpsichordist. He was known as Couperin le Grand to distinguish him from other members of the musically talented Couperin family.-Life:Couperin was born in Paris...
(1668–1733) and
Jean-Philippe RameauJean-Philippe Rameau was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the Baroque era. He replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera and is also considered the leading French composer for the harpsichord of his time, alongside François...
(1683–1764), whose very first printed piece (1706) was in this form. The last unmeasured preludes for harpsichord date from the 1710s.
The development of the prelude in 17th century
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
led to a sectional form similar to keyboard
toccataToccata is a virtuoso piece of music typically for a keyboard or plucked string instrument featuring fast-moving, lightly fingered or otherwise virtuosic passages or sections, with or without imitative or fugal interludes, generally emphasizing the dexterity of the performer's fingers...
s by
Johann Jakob FrobergerJohann Jakob Froberger was a German Baroque composer, keyboard virtuoso, and organist. He was among the most famous composers of the era and influenced practically every major composer in Europe by developing the genre of keyboard suite and contributing greatly to the exchange of musical...
or
Girolamo FrescobaldiGirolamo Frescobaldi was a musician from Ferrara, one of the most important composers of keyboard music in the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods. A child prodigy, Frescobaldi studied under Luzzasco Luzzaschi in Ferrara, but was influenced by a large number of composers, including Ascanio...
. Preludes by northern German composers such as
Dieterich BuxtehudeDieterich Buxtehude was a German-Danish organist and composer of the Baroque period. His organ works represent a central part of the standard organ repertoire and are frequently performed at recitals and in church services...
(c.1637–1707) and Nikolaus Bruhns (c.1665–1697) combined sections of free improvised passages with parts in strict
contrapuntalIn music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent . It has been most commonly identified in classical music, developing strongly during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period,...
writing (usually brief
fugueIn 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....
s). Outside Germany,
Abraham van den KerckhovenAbraham van den Kerckhoven was a Flemish organist and composer. He was active in Brussels, working as organist of Church of Saint Catherine and as court organist, and was held in high regard by his contemporaries...
(c.1618–c.1701), one of the most important
DutchThe Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...
composers of the period, used this model for some of his preludes. Southern and central German composers did not follow the sectional model and their preludes remained improvisational in character with little or no strict counterpoint.
During the second half of the 17th century, German composers started pairing preludes (or sometimes
toccataToccata is a virtuoso piece of music typically for a keyboard or plucked string instrument featuring fast-moving, lightly fingered or otherwise virtuosic passages or sections, with or without imitative or fugal interludes, generally emphasizing the dexterity of the performer's fingers...
s) with fugues in the same
keyIn 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...
;
Johann PachelbelJohann Pachelbel was a German Baroque composer, organist and teacher, who brought the south German organ tradition to its peak. He composed a large body of sacred and secular music, and his contributions to the development of the chorale prelude and fugue have earned him a place among the most...
(c.1653–1706) was one of the first to do so, although
Johann Sebastian BachJohann 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 (1685–1750) "prelude and fugue" pieces are much more numerous and well-known today. Bach's organ preludes are quite diverse, drawing on both southern and northern German influences. Most of Bach's preludes were written in the
theme and variationIn music, variation is a formal technique where material is repeated in an altered form. The changes may involve harmony, melody, counterpoint, rhythm, timbre, orchestration or any combination of these.-Variation form:...
form, using the same theme motif with imitation, inversion, modulation, or retrograde the theme as well as other techniques involved in this baroque form.
Johann Caspar Ferdinand FischerJohann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer was a German Baroque composer...
was one of the first German composers to bring the late 17th century French style to German harpsichord music, replacing the standard French ouverture with an unmeasured prelude. Fischer's
Ariadne musicaAriadne musica is a collection of organ music by Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer, first published in 1702. The main part of the collection is a cycle of 20 preludes and fugues in different keys, so Ariadne musica is considered an important precursor to Johann Sebastian Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier,...
is a cycle of keyboard music which consists of pairs of preludes and fugues; the preludes are quite varied and do not conform to any particular model.
Ariadne musica served as a precursor to Johann Sebastian Bach's
The Well-Tempered Clavier The Well-Tempered Clavier , BWV 846–893, is a collection of solo keyboard music composed by Johann Sebastian Bach...
, two books of 24 "prelude and fugue" pairs each. Bach's preludes were also varied, some akin to Baroque dances, others being two- and three-part contrapuntal works not unlike his
inventions and sinfoniasThe Inventions and Sinfonias, BWV 772–801, also known as the Two and Three Part Inventions, are a collection of thirty short keyboard compositions composed by Johann Sebastian Bach , consisting of fifteen inventions and fifteen sinfonias...
. Bach also composed preludes to introduce each of his English Suites.
The Well-Tempered Clavier influenced almost all major composers of the next centuries, and many often wrote preludes in sets of 12 or 24, sometimes with the intention of utilizing all 24
majorIn music theory, the major scale or Ionian scale is one of the diatonic scales. It is made up of seven distinct notes, plus an eighth which duplicates the first an octave higher. In solfege these notes correspond to the syllables "Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti/Si, ", the "Do" in the parenthesis at...
and
minorA minor scale in Western music theory includes any scale that contains, in its tonic triad, at least three essential scale degrees: 1) the tonic , 2) a minor-third, or an interval of a minor third above the tonic, and 3) a perfect-fifth, or an interval of a perfect fifth above the tonic, altogether...
keys as Bach had done.
Frédéric ChopinFrédéric 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"....
(1810–1849) wrote a set of 24 preludes, Op. 28, which liberated the prelude from its original introductory purpose and allowed it to serve as an independent concert piece. Often, Chopin wrote his preludes in a simple ternary form. Numerous composers after him wrote preludes with a similar purpose, such as
Claude DebussyClaude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
(1862–1918) and his two books of
impressionisticImpressionism in music was a tendency in European classical music, mainly in France, which appeared in the late nineteenth century and continued into the middle of the twentieth century. Similarly to its precursor in the visual arts, musical impressionism focuses on a suggestion and an atmosphere...
piano preludes, which influenced many later composers.
Preludes were also used by some 20th century composers when writing Baroque-inspired "suites". Such works include
RavelJoseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...
's
Le tombeau de CouperinLe tombeau de Couperin is a suite for solo piano by Maurice Ravel, composed between 1914 and 1917, in six movements. Each movement is dedicated to the memory of friends of the composer who had died fighting in World War I...
(1914/17) and
SchoenbergArnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
's
Suite for piano, Op. 25 (1921/23), both of which begin with an introductory prelude.
Notable collections of preludes
- Marcel Dupré
Marcel Dupré , was a French organist, pianist, composer, and pedagogue.-Biography:Marcel Dupré was born in Rouen . Born into a musical family, he was a child prodigy. His father Albert Dupré was organist in Rouen and a friend of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, who built an organ in the family house when...
is especially famous for his 3 Préludes and Fugues, in B Major, F Minor and G Minor, Op.7.
- J.C.F. Fischer
Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer was a German Baroque composer...
's Ariadne musicaAriadne musica is a collection of organ music by Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer, first published in 1702. The main part of the collection is a cycle of 20 preludes and fugues in different keys, so Ariadne musica is considered an important precursor to Johann Sebastian Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier,...
(1702), contained 20 preludes and fugues in 19 different keys.
- 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...
wrote the two volumes of The Well-Tempered Clavier The Well-Tempered Clavier , BWV 846–893, is a collection of solo keyboard music composed by Johann Sebastian Bach...
(1722, 1744). Both volumes contain 24 preludes (and associated fugues) proceeding up the chromatic scaleThe 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...
with alternating parallelIn 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...
major and minor keys (C major and C minor; C major and C minor; D major and D minor; etc.).
- Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
wrote two sets of preludes, Op. 39; each one cycles through all of the major keys of the piano.
- Frédéric Chopin
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 24 Preludes, Op. 28, which cycle through all of the major and minor keys. The odd numbered preludes are in major keys, starting with C major, and each is followed by a prelude in the relativeIn 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...
minor key. The paired preludes proceed through the circle of fifthsIn 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...
(C major and A minor; G major and E minor; D major and B minor; etc.). Most can be played as a stand alone piece.
- Charles-Valentin Alkan
Charles-Valentin Alkan was a French composer and one of the greatest virtuoso pianists of his day. His attachment to his Jewish origins is displayed both in his life and his work. He entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of six, earning many awards, and as an adult became a famous virtuoso...
wrote a set of 25 Preludes, Op. 31, published in 1847. His key scheme differs from Chopin's in that the major keys ascend chromatically and are followed by their respective minor subdominantIn music, the subdominant is the technical name for the fourth tonal degree of the diatonic scale. It is so called because it is the same distance "below" the tonic as the dominant is above the tonic - in other words, the tonic is the dominant of the subdominant. It is also the note immediately...
s, though Alkan also starts on C major. The last piece returns to C major, hence the additional prelude (a device Alkan repeated in the Esquisses, Op. 63The Esquisses , Op. 63 is a set of 49 short piano pieces written by French composer Charles-Valentin Alkan and published in 1861. The Esquisses is divided into four books, each book running through all the major and minor keys once. The set ends with an unnumbered Laus Deo in C major.Unlike many...
, and that César CuiCésar Antonovich Cui was a Russian of French and Lithuanian descent. His profession was as an army officer and a teacher of fortifications; his avocational life has particular significance in the history of music, in that he was a composer and music critic; in this sideline he is known as a...
employed in his own 25 Preludes, Op. 64). As a further distinction between his and Chopin's sets, Alkan provides programmatic titles for several of his preludes, including the most famous of the set, La chanson de la folle au bord de la mer (The Song of the Madwoman by the Seashore).
- Felix Blumenfeld
Felix Mikhailovich Blumenfeld was a Russian composer, conductor, pianist and teacher.He was born in Kovalevka, Kherson Governorate, Russian Empire , the son of Austrian Mikhail Frantsevich Blumenfeld and the Polish Marie Szymanowska, and studied composition at the St...
composed a set of 24 Preludes, Op. 17 in 1892, following Chopin's key scheme, as well as a set of four, Op. 12.
- 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,...
wrote 24 Preludes, Op. 11 in 1896, and numerous shorter sets of preludes. He followed the same pattern as the Chopin preludes.
- 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...
, wrote a prelude, Op. 3, No. 2, in 1892 followed by Ten Preludes, Op. 23Ten Preludes, Op. 23, is a set of ten preludes for solo piano, composed by Sergei Rachmaninoff in 1901 and 1903. This set includes the famous Prelude in G minor.- Composition :...
(1903) and Thirteen Preludes, Op. 32Thirteen Preludes , Op. 32, is a set of thirteen preludes for solo piano, composed by Sergei Rachmaninoff in 1910.-Works in this opus:Opus 32 contains 13 preludes:*No. 1 in C major *No. 2 in B flat minor...
(1910) for a total of twenty-four preludes in all the major and minor keys; he also composed a Prelude in D minorThe composer Sergei Rachmaninoff produced a number of solo piano pieces that were either lost, unpublished, or not assigned an opus number. While often disregarded in the concert repertoire, they are nevertheless part of his oeuvre. He composed sixteen such pieces, and all others are lost. Ten of...
, without opus number, in 1917 (there is yet another among his early unpublished works). The two most famous of these are the Prelude in C
{{Redirect|Intrada|record label|Intrada Records}}
{{See also|Overture}}
A prelude (Germ. Präludium or Vorspiel; Lat. praeludium; Fr. Prélude; It. Preludio) is a short piece of musicMusic is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
, the formThe term musical form refers to the overall structure or plan of a piece of music, and it describes the layout of a composition as divided into sections...
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. While, during the Baroque era, for example, it may have served as an introduction to succeeding movements of a work that were usually longer and more complex, it may also have been a stand alone piece of work during the Romantic era. It generally features a small number of rhythmic and melodic motifIn 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....
s that recur through the piece. Stylistically, the prelude is improvisatory in nature. The prelude can also refer to an overtureOverture in music is the term originally applied to the instrumental introduction to an opera...
, particularly to those seen in an operaOpera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
or an oratorioAn oratorio is a large musical composition including an orchestra, a choir, and soloists. Like an opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias...
.
History
The very first preludes were luteLute can refer generally to any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back, or more specifically to an instrument from the family of European lutes....
compositions of the RenaissanceThe Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
era. They were free improvisations and served as brief introductions to larger pieces of music or particular larger and more complex movements; lutenists also used them to test the instrument or the acoustics of the room before performing. KeyboardA keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
preludes started appearing in the 17th century in FranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
: unmeasured preludeUnmeasured or non-measured prelude is a prelude in which the duration of each note is left to the performer. Typically the term is used for 17th century harpsichord compositions that are written without rhythm or metre indications, although various composers of the Classical music era were...
s, in which the duration of each noteIn music notation, a note value indicates the relative duration of a note, using the color or shape of the note head, the presence or absence of a stem, and the presence or absence of flags/beams/hooks/tails....
is left to the performer, were used as introductory movements in harpsichordA harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...
suiteIn music, a suite is an ordered set of instrumental or orchestral pieces normally performed in a concert setting rather than as accompaniment; they may be extracts from an opera, ballet , or incidental music to a play or film , or they may be entirely original movements .In the...
s. Louis CouperinLouis Couperin was a French Baroque composer and performer. He was born in Chaumes-en-Brie and moved to Paris in 1650–51 with the help of Jacques Champion de Chambonnières. Couperin worked as organist of the Church of St. Gervais in Paris and as musician at the court...
(c.1626–1661) was the first composer to embrace the genre, and harpsichord preludes were used until the first half of the 18th century by numerous composers including Jean-Henri d'AnglebertJean-Henri d'Anglebert was a French composer, harpsichordist and organist. He was one of the foremost keyboard composers of his day.-Life:...
(1629–1691), Élisabeth Jacquet de la GuerreÉlisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre was a French musician, harpsichordist and composer.-Life and works:...
(1665–1729), François CouperinFrançois Couperin was a French Baroque composer, organist and harpsichordist. He was known as Couperin le Grand to distinguish him from other members of the musically talented Couperin family.-Life:Couperin was born in Paris...
(1668–1733) and Jean-Philippe RameauJean-Philippe Rameau was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the Baroque era. He replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera and is also considered the leading French composer for the harpsichord of his time, alongside François...
(1683–1764), whose very first printed piece (1706) was in this form. The last unmeasured preludes for harpsichord date from the 1710s.
The development of the prelude in 17th century GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
led to a sectional form similar to keyboard toccataToccata is a virtuoso piece of music typically for a keyboard or plucked string instrument featuring fast-moving, lightly fingered or otherwise virtuosic passages or sections, with or without imitative or fugal interludes, generally emphasizing the dexterity of the performer's fingers...
s by Johann Jakob FrobergerJohann Jakob Froberger was a German Baroque composer, keyboard virtuoso, and organist. He was among the most famous composers of the era and influenced practically every major composer in Europe by developing the genre of keyboard suite and contributing greatly to the exchange of musical...
or Girolamo FrescobaldiGirolamo Frescobaldi was a musician from Ferrara, one of the most important composers of keyboard music in the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods. A child prodigy, Frescobaldi studied under Luzzasco Luzzaschi in Ferrara, but was influenced by a large number of composers, including Ascanio...
. Preludes by northern German composers such as Dieterich BuxtehudeDieterich Buxtehude was a German-Danish organist and composer of the Baroque period. His organ works represent a central part of the standard organ repertoire and are frequently performed at recitals and in church services...
(c.1637–1707) and Nikolaus Bruhns (c.1665–1697) combined sections of free improvised passages with parts in strict contrapuntalIn music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent . It has been most commonly identified in classical music, developing strongly during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period,...
writing (usually brief fugueIn 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....
s). Outside Germany, Abraham van den KerckhovenAbraham van den Kerckhoven was a Flemish organist and composer. He was active in Brussels, working as organist of Church of Saint Catherine and as court organist, and was held in high regard by his contemporaries...
(c.1618–c.1701), one of the most important DutchThe Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...
composers of the period, used this model for some of his preludes. Southern and central German composers did not follow the sectional model and their preludes remained improvisational in character with little or no strict counterpoint.
During the second half of the 17th century, German composers started pairing preludes (or sometimes toccataToccata is a virtuoso piece of music typically for a keyboard or plucked string instrument featuring fast-moving, lightly fingered or otherwise virtuosic passages or sections, with or without imitative or fugal interludes, generally emphasizing the dexterity of the performer's fingers...
s) with fugues in the same keyIn 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...
; Johann PachelbelJohann Pachelbel was a German Baroque composer, organist and teacher, who brought the south German organ tradition to its peak. He composed a large body of sacred and secular music, and his contributions to the development of the chorale prelude and fugue have earned him a place among the most...
(c.1653–1706) was one of the first to do so, although Johann Sebastian BachJohann 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 (1685–1750) "prelude and fugue" pieces are much more numerous and well-known today. Bach's organ preludes are quite diverse, drawing on both southern and northern German influences. Most of Bach's preludes were written in the theme and variationIn music, variation is a formal technique where material is repeated in an altered form. The changes may involve harmony, melody, counterpoint, rhythm, timbre, orchestration or any combination of these.-Variation form:...
form, using the same theme motif with imitation, inversion, modulation, or retrograde the theme as well as other techniques involved in this baroque form.
Johann Caspar Ferdinand FischerJohann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer was a German Baroque composer...
was one of the first German composers to bring the late 17th century French style to German harpsichord music, replacing the standard French ouverture with an unmeasured prelude. Fischer's Ariadne musicaAriadne musica is a collection of organ music by Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer, first published in 1702. The main part of the collection is a cycle of 20 preludes and fugues in different keys, so Ariadne musica is considered an important precursor to Johann Sebastian Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier,...
is a cycle of keyboard music which consists of pairs of preludes and fugues; the preludes are quite varied and do not conform to any particular model. Ariadne musica served as a precursor to Johann Sebastian Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier The Well-Tempered Clavier , BWV 846–893, is a collection of solo keyboard music composed by Johann Sebastian Bach...
, two books of 24 "prelude and fugue" pairs each. Bach's preludes were also varied, some akin to Baroque dances, others being two- and three-part contrapuntal works not unlike his inventions and sinfoniasThe Inventions and Sinfonias, BWV 772–801, also known as the Two and Three Part Inventions, are a collection of thirty short keyboard compositions composed by Johann Sebastian Bach , consisting of fifteen inventions and fifteen sinfonias...
. Bach also composed preludes to introduce each of his English Suites.
The Well-Tempered Clavier influenced almost all major composers of the next centuries, and many often wrote preludes in sets of 12 or 24, sometimes with the intention of utilizing all 24 majorIn music theory, the major scale or Ionian scale is one of the diatonic scales. It is made up of seven distinct notes, plus an eighth which duplicates the first an octave higher. In solfege these notes correspond to the syllables "Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti/Si, ", the "Do" in the parenthesis at...
and minorA minor scale in Western music theory includes any scale that contains, in its tonic triad, at least three essential scale degrees: 1) the tonic , 2) a minor-third, or an interval of a minor third above the tonic, and 3) a perfect-fifth, or an interval of a perfect fifth above the tonic, altogether...
keys as Bach had done. Frédéric ChopinFrédéric 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"....
(1810–1849) wrote a set of 24 preludes, Op. 28, which liberated the prelude from its original introductory purpose and allowed it to serve as an independent concert piece. Often, Chopin wrote his preludes in a simple ternary form. Numerous composers after him wrote preludes with a similar purpose, such as Claude DebussyClaude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
(1862–1918) and his two books of impressionisticImpressionism in music was a tendency in European classical music, mainly in France, which appeared in the late nineteenth century and continued into the middle of the twentieth century. Similarly to its precursor in the visual arts, musical impressionism focuses on a suggestion and an atmosphere...
piano preludes, which influenced many later composers.
Preludes were also used by some 20th century composers when writing Baroque-inspired "suites". Such works include RavelJoseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...
's Le tombeau de CouperinLe tombeau de Couperin is a suite for solo piano by Maurice Ravel, composed between 1914 and 1917, in six movements. Each movement is dedicated to the memory of friends of the composer who had died fighting in World War I...
(1914/17) and SchoenbergArnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
's Suite for piano, Op. 25 (1921/23), both of which begin with an introductory prelude.
Notable collections of preludes
- Marcel Dupré
Marcel Dupré , was a French organist, pianist, composer, and pedagogue.-Biography:Marcel Dupré was born in Rouen . Born into a musical family, he was a child prodigy. His father Albert Dupré was organist in Rouen and a friend of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, who built an organ in the family house when...
is especially famous for his 3 Préludes and Fugues, in B Major, F Minor and G Minor, Op.7.
- J.C.F. Fischer
Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer was a German Baroque composer...
's Ariadne musicaAriadne musica is a collection of organ music by Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer, first published in 1702. The main part of the collection is a cycle of 20 preludes and fugues in different keys, so Ariadne musica is considered an important precursor to Johann Sebastian Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier,...
(1702), contained 20 preludes and fugues in 19 different keys.
- 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...
wrote the two volumes of The Well-Tempered Clavier The Well-Tempered Clavier , BWV 846–893, is a collection of solo keyboard music composed by Johann Sebastian Bach...
(1722, 1744). Both volumes contain 24 preludes (and associated fugues) proceeding up the chromatic scaleThe 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...
with alternating parallelIn 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...
major and minor keys (C major and C minor; C{{music|sharp}} major and C{{music|sharp}} minor; D major and D minor; etc.).
- Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
wrote two sets of preludes, Op. 39; each one cycles through all of the major keys of the piano.
- Frédéric Chopin
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 24 Preludes, Op. 28, which cycle through all of the major and minor keys. The odd numbered preludes are in major keys, starting with C major, and each is followed by a prelude in the relativeIn 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...
minor key. The paired preludes proceed through the circle of fifthsIn 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...
(C major and A minor; G major and E minor; D major and B minor; etc.). Most can be played as a stand alone piece.
- Charles-Valentin Alkan
Charles-Valentin Alkan was a French composer and one of the greatest virtuoso pianists of his day. His attachment to his Jewish origins is displayed both in his life and his work. He entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of six, earning many awards, and as an adult became a famous virtuoso...
wrote a set of 25 Preludes, Op. 31, published in 1847. His key scheme differs from Chopin's in that the major keys ascend chromatically and are followed by their respective minor subdominantIn music, the subdominant is the technical name for the fourth tonal degree of the diatonic scale. It is so called because it is the same distance "below" the tonic as the dominant is above the tonic - in other words, the tonic is the dominant of the subdominant. It is also the note immediately...
s, though Alkan also starts on C major. The last piece returns to C major, hence the additional prelude (a device Alkan repeated in the Esquisses, Op. 63The Esquisses , Op. 63 is a set of 49 short piano pieces written by French composer Charles-Valentin Alkan and published in 1861. The Esquisses is divided into four books, each book running through all the major and minor keys once. The set ends with an unnumbered Laus Deo in C major.Unlike many...
, and that César CuiCésar Antonovich Cui was a Russian of French and Lithuanian descent. His profession was as an army officer and a teacher of fortifications; his avocational life has particular significance in the history of music, in that he was a composer and music critic; in this sideline he is known as a...
employed in his own 25 Preludes, Op. 64). As a further distinction between his and Chopin's sets, Alkan provides programmatic titles for several of his preludes, including the most famous of the set, La chanson de la folle au bord de la mer (The Song of the Madwoman by the Seashore).
- Felix Blumenfeld
Felix Mikhailovich Blumenfeld was a Russian composer, conductor, pianist and teacher.He was born in Kovalevka, Kherson Governorate, Russian Empire , the son of Austrian Mikhail Frantsevich Blumenfeld and the Polish Marie Szymanowska, and studied composition at the St...
composed a set of 24 Preludes, Op. 17 in 1892, following Chopin's key scheme, as well as a set of four, Op. 12.
- 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,...
wrote 24 Preludes, Op. 11 in 1896, and numerous shorter sets of preludes. He followed the same pattern as the Chopin preludes.
- 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...
, wrote a prelude, Op. 3, No. 2, in 1892 followed by Ten Preludes, Op. 23Ten Preludes, Op. 23, is a set of ten preludes for solo piano, composed by Sergei Rachmaninoff in 1901 and 1903. This set includes the famous Prelude in G minor.- Composition :...
(1903) and Thirteen Preludes, Op. 32Thirteen Preludes , Op. 32, is a set of thirteen preludes for solo piano, composed by Sergei Rachmaninoff in 1910.-Works in this opus:Opus 32 contains 13 preludes:*No. 1 in C major *No. 2 in B flat minor...
(1910) for a total of twenty-four preludes in all the major and minor keys; he also composed a Prelude in D minorThe composer Sergei Rachmaninoff produced a number of solo piano pieces that were either lost, unpublished, or not assigned an opus number. While often disregarded in the concert repertoire, they are nevertheless part of his oeuvre. He composed sixteen such pieces, and all others are lost. Ten of...
, without opus number, in 1917 (there is yet another among his early unpublished works). The two most famous of these are the Prelude in C
{{Redirect|Intrada|record label|Intrada Records}}
{{See also|Overture}}
A prelude (Germ. Präludium or Vorspiel; Lat. praeludium; Fr. Prélude; It. Preludio) is a short piece of musicMusic is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
, the formThe term musical form refers to the overall structure or plan of a piece of music, and it describes the layout of a composition as divided into sections...
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. While, during the Baroque era, for example, it may have served as an introduction to succeeding movements of a work that were usually longer and more complex, it may also have been a stand alone piece of work during the Romantic era. It generally features a small number of rhythmic and melodic motifIn 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....
s that recur through the piece. Stylistically, the prelude is improvisatory in nature. The prelude can also refer to an overtureOverture in music is the term originally applied to the instrumental introduction to an opera...
, particularly to those seen in an operaOpera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
or an oratorioAn oratorio is a large musical composition including an orchestra, a choir, and soloists. Like an opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias...
.
History
The very first preludes were luteLute can refer generally to any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back, or more specifically to an instrument from the family of European lutes....
compositions of the RenaissanceThe Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
era. They were free improvisations and served as brief introductions to larger pieces of music or particular larger and more complex movements; lutenists also used them to test the instrument or the acoustics of the room before performing. KeyboardA keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
preludes started appearing in the 17th century in FranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
: unmeasured preludeUnmeasured or non-measured prelude is a prelude in which the duration of each note is left to the performer. Typically the term is used for 17th century harpsichord compositions that are written without rhythm or metre indications, although various composers of the Classical music era were...
s, in which the duration of each noteIn music notation, a note value indicates the relative duration of a note, using the color or shape of the note head, the presence or absence of a stem, and the presence or absence of flags/beams/hooks/tails....
is left to the performer, were used as introductory movements in harpsichordA harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...
suiteIn music, a suite is an ordered set of instrumental or orchestral pieces normally performed in a concert setting rather than as accompaniment; they may be extracts from an opera, ballet , or incidental music to a play or film , or they may be entirely original movements .In the...
s. Louis CouperinLouis Couperin was a French Baroque composer and performer. He was born in Chaumes-en-Brie and moved to Paris in 1650–51 with the help of Jacques Champion de Chambonnières. Couperin worked as organist of the Church of St. Gervais in Paris and as musician at the court...
(c.1626–1661) was the first composer to embrace the genre, and harpsichord preludes were used until the first half of the 18th century by numerous composers including Jean-Henri d'AnglebertJean-Henri d'Anglebert was a French composer, harpsichordist and organist. He was one of the foremost keyboard composers of his day.-Life:...
(1629–1691), Élisabeth Jacquet de la GuerreÉlisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre was a French musician, harpsichordist and composer.-Life and works:...
(1665–1729), François CouperinFrançois Couperin was a French Baroque composer, organist and harpsichordist. He was known as Couperin le Grand to distinguish him from other members of the musically talented Couperin family.-Life:Couperin was born in Paris...
(1668–1733) and Jean-Philippe RameauJean-Philippe Rameau was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the Baroque era. He replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera and is also considered the leading French composer for the harpsichord of his time, alongside François...
(1683–1764), whose very first printed piece (1706) was in this form. The last unmeasured preludes for harpsichord date from the 1710s.
The development of the prelude in 17th century GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
led to a sectional form similar to keyboard toccataToccata is a virtuoso piece of music typically for a keyboard or plucked string instrument featuring fast-moving, lightly fingered or otherwise virtuosic passages or sections, with or without imitative or fugal interludes, generally emphasizing the dexterity of the performer's fingers...
s by Johann Jakob FrobergerJohann Jakob Froberger was a German Baroque composer, keyboard virtuoso, and organist. He was among the most famous composers of the era and influenced practically every major composer in Europe by developing the genre of keyboard suite and contributing greatly to the exchange of musical...
or Girolamo FrescobaldiGirolamo Frescobaldi was a musician from Ferrara, one of the most important composers of keyboard music in the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods. A child prodigy, Frescobaldi studied under Luzzasco Luzzaschi in Ferrara, but was influenced by a large number of composers, including Ascanio...
. Preludes by northern German composers such as Dieterich BuxtehudeDieterich Buxtehude was a German-Danish organist and composer of the Baroque period. His organ works represent a central part of the standard organ repertoire and are frequently performed at recitals and in church services...
(c.1637–1707) and Nikolaus Bruhns (c.1665–1697) combined sections of free improvised passages with parts in strict contrapuntalIn music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent . It has been most commonly identified in classical music, developing strongly during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period,...
writing (usually brief fugueIn 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....
s). Outside Germany, Abraham van den KerckhovenAbraham van den Kerckhoven was a Flemish organist and composer. He was active in Brussels, working as organist of Church of Saint Catherine and as court organist, and was held in high regard by his contemporaries...
(c.1618–c.1701), one of the most important DutchThe Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...
composers of the period, used this model for some of his preludes. Southern and central German composers did not follow the sectional model and their preludes remained improvisational in character with little or no strict counterpoint.
During the second half of the 17th century, German composers started pairing preludes (or sometimes toccataToccata is a virtuoso piece of music typically for a keyboard or plucked string instrument featuring fast-moving, lightly fingered or otherwise virtuosic passages or sections, with or without imitative or fugal interludes, generally emphasizing the dexterity of the performer's fingers...
s) with fugues in the same keyIn 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...
; Johann PachelbelJohann Pachelbel was a German Baroque composer, organist and teacher, who brought the south German organ tradition to its peak. He composed a large body of sacred and secular music, and his contributions to the development of the chorale prelude and fugue have earned him a place among the most...
(c.1653–1706) was one of the first to do so, although Johann Sebastian BachJohann 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 (1685–1750) "prelude and fugue" pieces are much more numerous and well-known today. Bach's organ preludes are quite diverse, drawing on both southern and northern German influences. Most of Bach's preludes were written in the theme and variationIn music, variation is a formal technique where material is repeated in an altered form. The changes may involve harmony, melody, counterpoint, rhythm, timbre, orchestration or any combination of these.-Variation form:...
form, using the same theme motif with imitation, inversion, modulation, or retrograde the theme as well as other techniques involved in this baroque form.
Johann Caspar Ferdinand FischerJohann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer was a German Baroque composer...
was one of the first German composers to bring the late 17th century French style to German harpsichord music, replacing the standard French ouverture with an unmeasured prelude. Fischer's Ariadne musicaAriadne musica is a collection of organ music by Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer, first published in 1702. The main part of the collection is a cycle of 20 preludes and fugues in different keys, so Ariadne musica is considered an important precursor to Johann Sebastian Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier,...
is a cycle of keyboard music which consists of pairs of preludes and fugues; the preludes are quite varied and do not conform to any particular model. Ariadne musica served as a precursor to Johann Sebastian Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier The Well-Tempered Clavier , BWV 846–893, is a collection of solo keyboard music composed by Johann Sebastian Bach...
, two books of 24 "prelude and fugue" pairs each. Bach's preludes were also varied, some akin to Baroque dances, others being two- and three-part contrapuntal works not unlike his inventions and sinfoniasThe Inventions and Sinfonias, BWV 772–801, also known as the Two and Three Part Inventions, are a collection of thirty short keyboard compositions composed by Johann Sebastian Bach , consisting of fifteen inventions and fifteen sinfonias...
. Bach also composed preludes to introduce each of his English Suites.
The Well-Tempered Clavier influenced almost all major composers of the next centuries, and many often wrote preludes in sets of 12 or 24, sometimes with the intention of utilizing all 24 majorIn music theory, the major scale or Ionian scale is one of the diatonic scales. It is made up of seven distinct notes, plus an eighth which duplicates the first an octave higher. In solfege these notes correspond to the syllables "Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti/Si, ", the "Do" in the parenthesis at...
and minorA minor scale in Western music theory includes any scale that contains, in its tonic triad, at least three essential scale degrees: 1) the tonic , 2) a minor-third, or an interval of a minor third above the tonic, and 3) a perfect-fifth, or an interval of a perfect fifth above the tonic, altogether...
keys as Bach had done. Frédéric ChopinFrédéric 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"....
(1810–1849) wrote a set of 24 preludes, Op. 28, which liberated the prelude from its original introductory purpose and allowed it to serve as an independent concert piece. Often, Chopin wrote his preludes in a simple ternary form. Numerous composers after him wrote preludes with a similar purpose, such as Claude DebussyClaude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
(1862–1918) and his two books of impressionisticImpressionism in music was a tendency in European classical music, mainly in France, which appeared in the late nineteenth century and continued into the middle of the twentieth century. Similarly to its precursor in the visual arts, musical impressionism focuses on a suggestion and an atmosphere...
piano preludes, which influenced many later composers.
Preludes were also used by some 20th century composers when writing Baroque-inspired "suites". Such works include RavelJoseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...
's Le tombeau de CouperinLe tombeau de Couperin is a suite for solo piano by Maurice Ravel, composed between 1914 and 1917, in six movements. Each movement is dedicated to the memory of friends of the composer who had died fighting in World War I...
(1914/17) and SchoenbergArnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
's Suite for piano, Op. 25 (1921/23), both of which begin with an introductory prelude.
Notable collections of preludes
- Marcel Dupré
Marcel Dupré , was a French organist, pianist, composer, and pedagogue.-Biography:Marcel Dupré was born in Rouen . Born into a musical family, he was a child prodigy. His father Albert Dupré was organist in Rouen and a friend of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, who built an organ in the family house when...
is especially famous for his 3 Préludes and Fugues, in B Major, F Minor and G Minor, Op.7.
- J.C.F. Fischer
Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer was a German Baroque composer...
's Ariadne musicaAriadne musica is a collection of organ music by Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer, first published in 1702. The main part of the collection is a cycle of 20 preludes and fugues in different keys, so Ariadne musica is considered an important precursor to Johann Sebastian Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier,...
(1702), contained 20 preludes and fugues in 19 different keys.
- 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...
wrote the two volumes of The Well-Tempered Clavier The Well-Tempered Clavier , BWV 846–893, is a collection of solo keyboard music composed by Johann Sebastian Bach...
(1722, 1744). Both volumes contain 24 preludes (and associated fugues) proceeding up the chromatic scaleThe 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...
with alternating parallelIn 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...
major and minor keys (C major and C minor; C{{music|sharp}} major and C{{music|sharp}} minor; D major and D minor; etc.).
- Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
wrote two sets of preludes, Op. 39; each one cycles through all of the major keys of the piano.
- Frédéric Chopin
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 24 Preludes, Op. 28, which cycle through all of the major and minor keys. The odd numbered preludes are in major keys, starting with C major, and each is followed by a prelude in the relativeIn 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...
minor key. The paired preludes proceed through the circle of fifthsIn 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...
(C major and A minor; G major and E minor; D major and B minor; etc.). Most can be played as a stand alone piece.
- Charles-Valentin Alkan
Charles-Valentin Alkan was a French composer and one of the greatest virtuoso pianists of his day. His attachment to his Jewish origins is displayed both in his life and his work. He entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of six, earning many awards, and as an adult became a famous virtuoso...
wrote a set of 25 Preludes, Op. 31, published in 1847. His key scheme differs from Chopin's in that the major keys ascend chromatically and are followed by their respective minor subdominantIn music, the subdominant is the technical name for the fourth tonal degree of the diatonic scale. It is so called because it is the same distance "below" the tonic as the dominant is above the tonic - in other words, the tonic is the dominant of the subdominant. It is also the note immediately...
s, though Alkan also starts on C major. The last piece returns to C major, hence the additional prelude (a device Alkan repeated in the Esquisses, Op. 63The Esquisses , Op. 63 is a set of 49 short piano pieces written by French composer Charles-Valentin Alkan and published in 1861. The Esquisses is divided into four books, each book running through all the major and minor keys once. The set ends with an unnumbered Laus Deo in C major.Unlike many...
, and that César CuiCésar Antonovich Cui was a Russian of French and Lithuanian descent. His profession was as an army officer and a teacher of fortifications; his avocational life has particular significance in the history of music, in that he was a composer and music critic; in this sideline he is known as a...
employed in his own 25 Preludes, Op. 64). As a further distinction between his and Chopin's sets, Alkan provides programmatic titles for several of his preludes, including the most famous of the set, La chanson de la folle au bord de la mer (The Song of the Madwoman by the Seashore).
- Felix Blumenfeld
Felix Mikhailovich Blumenfeld was a Russian composer, conductor, pianist and teacher.He was born in Kovalevka, Kherson Governorate, Russian Empire , the son of Austrian Mikhail Frantsevich Blumenfeld and the Polish Marie Szymanowska, and studied composition at the St...
composed a set of 24 Preludes, Op. 17 in 1892, following Chopin's key scheme, as well as a set of four, Op. 12.
- 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,...
wrote 24 Preludes, Op. 11 in 1896, and numerous shorter sets of preludes. He followed the same pattern as the Chopin preludes.
- 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...
, wrote a prelude, Op. 3, No. 2, in 1892 followed by Ten Preludes, Op. 23Ten Preludes, Op. 23, is a set of ten preludes for solo piano, composed by Sergei Rachmaninoff in 1901 and 1903. This set includes the famous Prelude in G minor.- Composition :...
(1903) and Thirteen Preludes, Op. 32Thirteen Preludes , Op. 32, is a set of thirteen preludes for solo piano, composed by Sergei Rachmaninoff in 1910.-Works in this opus:Opus 32 contains 13 preludes:*No. 1 in C major *No. 2 in B flat minor...
(1910) for a total of twenty-four preludes in all the major and minor keys; he also composed a Prelude in D minorThe composer Sergei Rachmaninoff produced a number of solo piano pieces that were either lost, unpublished, or not assigned an opus number. While often disregarded in the concert repertoire, they are nevertheless part of his oeuvre. He composed sixteen such pieces, and all others are lost. Ten of...
, without opus number, in 1917 (there is yet another among his early unpublished works). The two most famous of these are the Prelude in C{{music and the Prelude in G minorPrelude in G minor, Op. 23, No. 5, was a music piece by Sergei Rachmaninoff, completed in 1901. It was included in his Opus 23 set of ten preludes despite having been written two years earlier than the other nine. It epitomizes Rachmaninoff's Russian nationalism, being rich, in full chords, and...
.
- Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
wrote two books of 12 PréludesClaude Debussy's Préludes are two sets of pieces for solo piano. They are divided into two separate livres, or books, of twelve preludes each. Unlike previous collections of preludes, like those of JS Bach and Chopin, Debussy's do not follow a strict pattern of key signatures.Each book was written...
, Book 1 (1910) and Book 2 (1913), for a total of 24 preludes. The title of the prelude is given at the end of the piece, while a Roman numeral serves as the heading.
- Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen was a French composer, organist and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex ; harmonically and melodically it is based on modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from his early compositions and improvisations...
's set of eight piano preludes (1929) developed from the ImpressionismImpressionism in music was a tendency in European classical music, mainly in France, which appeared in the late nineteenth century and continued into the middle of the twentieth century. Similarly to its precursor in the visual arts, musical impressionism focuses on a suggestion and an atmosphere...
of Debussy's piano music.
- Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher, music theorist and conductor.- Biography :Born in Hanau, near Frankfurt, Hindemith was taught the violin as a child...
wrote Ludus TonalisLudus Tonalis , subtitled Kontrapunktische, tonal, und Klaviertechnische Übungen , is a piano work by Paul Hindemith that was composed in 1942 during his stay in the United States.The piece starts with a three-part Praeludium in C resembling Bach's toccatas, and ends with a Postludium...
(1940), a prelude, 11 interludes, and a postlude, all separated by 12 fugues.
- Alberto Ginastera
Alberto Evaristo Ginastera was an Argentine composer of classical music. He is considered one of the most important Latin American classical composers.- Biography :...
wrote a cycle of 12 American Preludes (Doce Preludios Americanos) (1946).
- Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....
wrote a cycle of 24 Preludes and FuguesThe 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87 by Dmitri Shostakovich is a set of 24 piano pieces, one in each of the major and minor keys of the chromatic scale. While the musical style and ideas are Shostakovich's own, it follows the form of Frederic Chopin's Op. 28 preludes.Each piece is in two parts: a...
, Op. 87 in 1951, as well as an earlier set of 24 Preludes, Op. 34 (1933), for piano.
- Lera Auerbach
Lera Auerbach is a Russian-born American composer and pianist.-Early life & education:Auerbach was born in Chelyabinsk, a city in the Urals bordering Siberia. She holds degrees in piano and composition from The Juilliard School, where she studied piano with Joseph Kalichstein and composition...
wrote three full sets of 24 Preludes, which cycle through all of the major and minor keys, for piano solo, violin and piano, and cello and piano respectively (2003).
- Nikolai Kapustin
Nikolai Girshevich Kapustin is a Ukrainian Russian composer and pianist....
has written 24 Preludes in Jazz Style, Op. 53, and later a set of 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 82.
- Heitor Villa-Lobos
Heitor Villa-Lobos was a Brazilian composer, described as "the single most significant creative figure in 20th-century Brazilian art music". Villa-Lobos has become the best-known and most significant Latin American composer to date. He wrote numerous orchestral, chamber, instrumental and vocal works...
wrote his 5 Preludes in 1940, which has become a highly popular inclusion in classical guitar repertoire. A sixth prelude is lost.
- David Garrett
David Garrett may refer to:*David Garrett *David C. Garrett, Jr., American businessman*David Garrett , former New Zealand politician*David Garrett , American filmmaker...
wrote his Rock Prelude.
Further reading
- Howat, Roy. The Art of French Piano Music: Debussy, Ravel, Faure, Chabrier. 2009. Print.
- A.B. Wenk : Claude Debussy and Twentieth-Century Music (Boston, 1983)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Prelude (Music)}}