EPISODE 7
0:30 James Quinn (Introduction)
Hello and a warm welcome to Episode 7 in Series 3 of the Relaxing Piano Playlist, with your host James Quinn here at the piano, thank you very much for joining me. In this episode, you’re going to hear a short number of pieces ranging from a wide variety of composers, covering the Baroque, the Romantic and the 20th Century Periods. This episode is centred on a type of musical form known as the Piano Prelude, and has been used by many different composers throughout all musical periods even up to the present day. In fact, the prelude itself has been used by many composers in all different contexts, including for orchestral music, and also in opera, and also in organ music as well.
The first piece that you’re going to hear comes from the Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach, and the first piece that you’re going to hear will be his Prelude No.11 in F minor, which comes from the very first book of his Well-Tempered Clavier, which was published as BWV No. 857. What’s interesting to note here, that Back organises his Preludes as well as his Fugues in a certain order. In fact, in both books of the Well-Tempered Clavier, he organises all of the pieces in a chromatic order, so he begins with Number 1 in C Major, and then Number 2 as the Fugue also in C Major, and then in Number 3 and Number 4 goes to C minor, and repeats in this continuous order, until he finishes with Number 24 in B minor, in both books.
The next set of pieces comes from the Romantic composer, Frederic Chopin, and you’re going to hear 3 Preludes from his 24 Preludes that he composed and published as Opus Number 28. In order, you’ll hear Number 7 in A Major, Number 6 in B minor and finally Number 4 in E minor. In comparison to J.S Bach, Chopin organises his Preludes in a very different order. He actually writes them in a cycle of fifths, from both the major keys but also in the minor keys. To give you an example, he starts off with the first Prelude in the key of C Major, and then goes to Number 2 to it’s relative to A minor. He continues this in fashion as he progresses through all of the major and minor keys as they cycle through all of the major keys in both the number of sharps and flats, as well as all of the minor keys in the same manner, until he finishes with the last two with Numbers 23 in F Major and Number 24 in D minor, which completes the cycle of all 24 Preludes in a very dramatic conclusion.
The next piece comes from the composer, Alexander Scriabin, and you’re going to hear his Prelude in E minor, which he published in a set of 24 Preludes which also encompassed all of the major and minor keys from Opus Number 11. This particular Prelude was composed in the year of 1888. What’s quite interesting is that before writing this as a Prelude in E minor, he had a completely different plan to compose a Ballade in B Flat minor. Maybe it was the fact that he was heavily influenced from the piano music of Frederic Chopin that somewhat convinced him to write the 24 Preludes himself as Opus 11, to continue this route, and many other composers would follow, including the likes of Shostakovitch and Kabalevsky to name a few.
The next piece that you’re going to hear, comes from the returning Russian composer, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and in this case, you’re going to hear his Prelude Number 6 in E Flat Major, which he composed in his first set of Piano Preludes which he published as Opus Number 23. He did go on to compose a second set of Preludes, which he published as Opus Number 32. He also explores all of the major and minor keys in all of his Piano Preludes.
And finally, we’ll hear another Piano Prelude, this time from the 20th Century Impressionistic French composer, Claude Debussy. This is perhaps probably one of his most famous piano preludes, and probably one of his cherished works for the instrument as well. I am talking of course about Prelude Number 10, from the first book of 12 Preludes, otherwise known from its French title as ‘la cathedrale engloutie’, translated as ‘The sunken cathedral’. Debussy organises his preludes in a very different way more than any other composer for the instrument. Not only is the soundscape completely different, but he also gives them titles, and ordinarily in the score you would normally see them at the beginning, but in fact Debussy places these at the end of each individual prelude. Either it’s to allow the pianist to respond intuitively and individually to the music before finding out what Debussy intended the music to sound like, or maybe its to apply more ambiguity to the music’s illusion. What’s interesting to note with this particular piece, is actually based on an ancient Breton myth, in which a cathedral submerged underwater off the coast of the Island called Ys, rises up from the sea on a clear mornings when the water is transparent, and the sounds of priests chanting, bells chiming and organ playing, certainly uses the technique of musical symbolism of which Debussy uses this very effectively.
So to recap, here is the order just once more: Prelude No.11 in F minor from the first book of the Well-Tempered Clavier by J.S Bach, Preludes No.7 in A Major, No.6 in B minor and No.4 in E minor from Op.28 by Chopin, Prelude in E minor No.4 from Op.11 by Scriabin, Prelude No.6 in E Flat Major from Op.23 by Rachmaninoff, and finally Prelude No.10 ‘la cathedrale engloutie’, ‘The sunken cathedral’ by Claude Debussy.
So sit back, relax, and I hope that you all enjoy the music. Thank you.