# Did you know the great story behind creation of Chopin 24 Preludes?



## Wojciech Oleksiak (May 29, 2014)

12 years into my music education I had no idea that Chopin 24 Preludes cycle is so interesting and so deeply tied with upheavals in his personal life! 

Look what I managed to find out:

http://culture.pl/en/article/breaking-down-chopin-24-preludes


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Chopin's preludes are a magnificent cycle of highly advanced and refined piano music, one of the monuments of piano literature... _and I don't care if he had a toothache when he wrote them_


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## Wojciech Oleksiak (May 29, 2014)

PetrB said:


> Chopin's preludes are a magnificent cycle of highly advanced and refined piano music, one of the monuments of piano literature... _and I don't care if he had a toothache when he wrote them_


Than I encourage you even more to read this article as the circumstances serve only as an introduction


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

"Until 1938, Chopin’s career was developing extraordinarily well. He had become one of Paris’ favourite composers and performing pianists."

This is not a good start.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Is it a cycle or just a collection? Does the order matter?


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Mandryka said:


> Is it a cycle or just a collection? Does the order matter?


The order matters to me.


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## Wojciech Oleksiak (May 29, 2014)

Mandryka said:


> Is it a cycle or just a collection? Does the order matter?


It is definitely a cycle. There are 24 preludes - one written in each key. In my opinion the order matters but scholars are not unanimous.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Mandryka said:


> Is it a cycle or just a collection? Does the order matter?


The _Preludes_ are Chopin's _only_ cyclical work. As much as they are extracted in isolation and used for piano study, they were written to be performed en suite, front to back -- ergo, _of course the order matters!_


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## Wojciech Oleksiak (May 29, 2014)

I totally agree with PetrB (personally). What is however interesting is that we don't know if Chopin intended preludes to be performed as a cycle. Almost surely he never performed the whole of the cycle during one concert. He used to play a few of them, usually he choose those which had some tricky reference to the larger compositions he was supposed to perform.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Wojciech Oleksiak said:


> It is definitely a cycle. There are 24 preludes - one written in each key. In my opinion the order matters but scholars are not unanimous.


WTC is written in each key but it's surely not a cyclical work, is it? I wonder if those people who think of op 28 as cyclical could recommend a recording which particularly brings out this aspect of the music. Maybe with a comment about what I should listen for.

What about the two sets of etudes, are they cyclical?

(One reason I'm probing is that the more I listen to Chopin them more I'm impressed by his large scale solo works -- the 2nd and 3rd sonatas especially.)


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## GodNickSatan (Feb 28, 2013)

Chopin's greatest work.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

The article, if not actually superficial as to circumstance of the Preludes being written, is nothing of any great depth.

What I did like, and knew already, was the quote which confirms Chopin's well-known aversion to giving any of his music titles other than by form: he had no truck with the literalism of music representing anything, whether that be nature or the naming of a specific 'emotional content.' _He may have been a romantic era composer, but he was completely against the grain of the trend of his era in naming pieces as to what the music might express or 'be about.'_

From the article, Georges Sand on Chopin's reaction to Prelude No. 15 being dubbed, _Raindrop._

*"He was even angry that I should interpret this in terms of imitative sounds. He protested with all his might - and he was right to - against the childishness of such aural imitations. His genius was filled with the mysterious sounds of nature, but transformed into sublime equivalents by musical thought, and not through slavish imitation of the actual external sounds."*


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