![]() With the notes this deep in the bass, the overtones are closer together, and a lack of pedaling can create an unintended, muddy effect. ![]() In these measures, be sure to pedal after every chord change. In terms of technique required to play this section, I recommend using the soft pedal in measures 28 through 34, and again in measures 44 through 50, the point in the music where the rainstorm brews. When I play this music, I imagine that the chords shifting in the bass are storm clouds gathering force, until thunder rips through the sky in the form of fortissimo E and B octaves. The mood of the music changes as well, from ruminative, rapt musings, perhaps the happy thoughts of Chopin newly enamored with Sand, to a to a brooding feeling that explodes with octaves in the bass. The key changes from D-flat major to C-sharp minor, and the melody moves from the treble into the deep bass. The second section of the Chopin Raindrop Prelude marks several notable shifts in the music. Marek and Maria Gordon-Smith, Harper and Row, 1978.) The Raindrop Prelude’s Storm Section “The wind plays in the trees, life unfolds and develops beneath them, but the tree remains the same-that is Chopin’s rubato.” (This correspondence described in Chopin by George R. “Do you see those trees?” Liszt later wrote, perhaps a vein of sarcasm in his tone. In other words, rubato is discreet, like the gentle rustling of tree leaves. The trunk moves in steady time, the leaves move in inflections,” Chopin wrote to Franz Liszt, his friend and fellow composer. “Imagine a moving tree with its branches swayed by the wind. This means that tempo rubato in the Chopin Raindrop Prelude should be subtle, never exaggerated or maudlin.Ĭhopin’s own correspondence supports Professor Pakman’s view. Exceptions would be at the end of a phrase, such as the group of seven treble notes closing out measure four. The corollary is that those tenor eighth notes repeating throughout the music-A flat, then transformed to G sharp, and then back to A flat again-should be played more or less strictly in time. The repeated A-flats in the Chopin Raindrop Prelude ought to be “organic, natural, with a mesmerizing quality,” says Mark Pakman, Adjunct Professor at the John J. In this article, part of GRAND PIANO PASSION™’s well-regarded Classical Piano Music Amplified™ series, I look at the Chopin Raindrop Prelude from multiple perspectives, including the technique to accomplish the repeated tenor notes, vivid performances from concert pianists, and how the music fits into Chopin’s larger body of work. The repeated tenor notes, which patter underneath all but a few of the measures in the Chopin Raindrop Prelude-first A-flat, then G-sharp, then back to A-flat again, so evocative of raindrops-make the piece almost wholly unique in classical piano music. Williams performing Chopin’s Raindrop Prelude at a Stanford Women’s Network event. Frederick Niecks says that in the middle section of the prelude there "rises before one's mind the cloistered court of the monastery of Valldemossa, and a procession of monks chanting lugubrious prayers, and carrying in the dark hours of night their departed brother to his last resting-place.Nancy M. ![]() However, Peter Dayan points out that Sand accepted Chopin's protests that the prelude was not an imitation of the sound of raindrops, but a translation of nature's harmonies within Chopin's "génie". ![]() 15, because of the repeating A ♭, with its suggestion of the "gentle patter" of rain. Sand did not say which prelude Chopin played for her on that occasion, but most music critics assume it to be no. His genius was filled with the mysterious sounds of nature, but transformed into sublime equivalents in musical thought, and not through slavish imitation of the actual external sounds. He protested with all his might – and he was right to – against the childishness of such aural imitations. He was even angry that I should interpret this in terms of imitative sounds. Heavy drops of icy water fell in a regular rhythm on his breast, and when I made him listen to the sound of the drops of water indeed falling in rhythm on the roof, he denied having heard it. In her Histoire de ma vie, or "Story of My Life", Sand related how one evening she and her son Maurice, returning from Palma in a terrible rainstorm, found a distraught Chopin who exclaimed, "Ah! I knew well that you were dead." While playing his piano he had a dream: Some, though not all, of Op. 28 was written during Chopin and George Sand's stay at a monastery in Valldemossa, Mallorca in 1838. The prelude is noted for its repeating A ♭, which appears throughout the piece and sounds like raindrops to many listeners. Usually lasting between five and seven minutes, this is the longest of the preludes. 15, by Frédéric Chopin, known as the "Raindrop" prelude, is one of the 24 Chopin preludes.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |