Description
In its closing pages a low A-flat tolls eleven times like a bell beneath a piece full of song. The seventeenth of the 24 Preludes, Op. 28, it runs over two and a half minutes with nearly 2,500 notes, substantial enough to stand as a character piece in its own right. Mendelssohn is said to have loved it and to have remarked that it was what he had been aiming at in his own songs without words.
In 6/8, a singing theme keeps returning, with modulating episodes filling the space between. In the coda, as the A-flat major harmony settles, the music dissolves quietly above the bell-like bass.
The difficulty is the length. Fast motion is limited, hence the intermediate rating, but with the theme returning so often, playing it the same way each time will not sustain the piece — change the colour at every return. The tolling bass at the end needs a delicate balance: not varied beat by beat, yet not mechanical either. A slightly deeper pedal, short of blurring, lets the bell resonate.
A set of 24 short pieces Chopin composed in 1838-39, covering all 24 keys, each with its own distinct character — a poetic cycle for piano.
Browse all songs in 24 Preludes Op.28 →Sheet Music
Sheet music provided by Mutopia Project
About the Composer
Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)
Frederic Chopin was born in Poland and made his career in Paris, remaining unusual among great composers for writing almost exclusively for piano. He poured his longing for his homeland into mazurkas and polonaises, while his ballades and etudes combine poetic melody with harmonic innovation. This site includes the "Revolutionary" and other etudes, Ballades No. 1 and No. 4, nocturnes, and the Preludes, Op. 28.
View all works by Chopin →