Prelude No. 15 in D flat - Chopin

Prelude No. 15 in D flat - Chopin

1. Romantic Music and Chopin

   • 1825 to 1900
   • Centred on conveying emotions, telling stories and painting musical pictures
   • Key features:
     • Expressive and emotional
     • Rich and chromatic harmonies, greater use of dissonance (clashing notes) and modulations to more remote keys
     • Technical advances in instruments, leading to larger orchestras and the rise of virtuoso
     • Longer structures and forms
     • Descriptive titles
   • Other composers: Liszt, Mendelssohn and Schumann
   • Chopin was a Polish composer and wrote nearly all of his pieces for solo piano
     • He gave concerts to a select gathering of people called 'salons'

2. Nicknamed the 'Raindrop Prelude'

   • Repeated quavers sound like rain
   • Comes from a collection a preludes known as Op. 28 composed in 1893
   • 24 preludes in total - half minor and half major
   • Performed in a small space like a recital room

3. Structure

   • Ternary form (ABA)
   • A(2) - D flat major, returns to opening melody, shorter, finished with brief coda
   • B - C sharp minor, melody in the bass and quavers heard above it, builds up to multiple ff climaxes
   • A(1) - D flat major, lyrical melody, quavers in bass

4. Performance Markings

   • Sotto voce: musical whisper
   • Smorzando: dying away
   • Slentando / ritenuto: slow down

5. Rhythm, Metre and Tempo

   • Time signature: C
   • Use of septuplet - 7 notes of equal length played in a single crotchet beat
     • Dectuplet
   • Piece is played in a legato, unhurrier manner
   • Rubato - flexible tempo for expressive effect
   • Repeated quavers
   • Dotted rhythms throughout Section A

6. Melody

   • Piece starts with lyrical melody in the right hand decorated with ornaments
     • Includes dotted rhythms and some chromaticism
   • Melody moves to bass in Section B. It has a narrower range and is mostly made up of longer notes
   • Four- and eight-bar phrases

7. Tonality and Harmony

   • D flat major
     • Mainly diatonic harmony with occasional chromaticism
   • Modulates from tonic major to enharmonic tonic minor (C sharp minor)
   • Sections A and B end with imperfect cadences
     • Piece ends with perfect cadence
   • Dominant pedal

8. Texture

   • Homophonic
     • SECTION A - melody in right hand, supported by broken chords in left
     • SECTION B - melody in left hand, repeated quavers and pedal in right. Pedal is inverted and doubled in octaves
     • SECTION A - back to opening texture. Short monophonic passage in coda

9. Dynamics

   • Lots of crescendos and diminuendos
   • Wide range (pp to ff)
   • Section A is quieter than B

10. Use of Piano

    • Uses middle and lower ranges of piano
    • Not virtuoso
      • Chopin concentrated on creating a legato, singing tone instead
    • Wide dynamic range
    • Sustaining pedal