1 oct. 1839 - Preludes, Op. 28

Description:

Like the preludes and fugues of WTC, 24 in all keys.

Lotsa crazy different characters. A minor is grotesque...there's something in this piece to bewilder and enchant everyone. It was when both attitudes were present and impossible to disengage from one another that Romantics were most apt to speak, as Schumann did, of genius.

Such Genius was often linked with the demonic, madness, or physical illness (and many in the nineteenth century drew the false equivalency that madness and physical infirmity were signs of genius). In her memoirs, George Sand described Chopin composing the A Minor Prelude while actually coughing blood, becoming an object of "horror and fright to the population"and leading to the couple's eviction from their Majorcan retreat. This image became central to the Chopin myth and to his reception. A midcentury French critic thought his music exerted a dangerous influence: "Chopin was a sick man who enjoyed suffering, and did not want to be cured. He poured out his pain in adorable accents--his sweet melancholy language which he invented to express his sadness. Chopin's music is essentially unhealthy. That is its allure and also its danger. Such a one-sided but culturally significant view of Chopin is contradicted by many of his best-known pieces, including the very next prelude, a light, outdoorsy, altogether unproblematic Vivace in G major, which is followed by a pianistically undemanding E minor Largo.

Chopins Polishness is most apparent, not surprisingly, in his Polish dances, especially the mazurkas and polonaises, which were the works particualrly prized by many contemporaries as characteristically "Chopinesque."

Mazurkas: Danced by couples either in circles or in country dance sets, performed in various tempos. Triple meter, strongest beat on 2 or 3, marked by the tap of a heel.

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