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Prelude, Op. 28, No. 15 (Chopin)

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Prelude 15, page 1 (autograph)

The Prelude Op. 28, No. 15, by Frédéric Chopin, known as the "Raindrop" prelude, is one of the 24 Chopin preludes. Usually performed between five and seven minutes in length, the sostenuto is also the longest of the preludes. The prelude is noted for its repeating A-flat, which appears throughout the piece and sounds like raindrops to many listeners.[1]

Composition

Some, though not all, of Opus 28 was written during Chopin and George Sand's stay at a monastery in Valldemossa, Majorca in 1838. [2] In her Histoire de ma vie, 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 in which

He saw himself drowned in a lake. 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. He was even angry that I should interpret this in terms of imitative sounds. He protested with all his might – and he was right to – against the childishness of such aural imitations. 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."[3]

Sand did not say which prelude Chopin played for her on that occasion, but most music critics assume it to be no. 15, because of the repeating A flat, with its suggestion of the "gentle patter" of rain.[4] Peter Dayan, however points out that Sand accepted Chopin's protests that the prelude was not an imitation of the sound of raindrops, but a translation of natures harmonies within Chopin's "génie".[5] Frederick Niecks says that the prelude "rises before one's mind the cloistered court of the monastery of Valdemosa, and a procession of monks chanting lugubrious prayers, and carrying in the dark hours of night their departed brother to his last resting-place.[6]

Description

The prelude opens with a "serene" theme in D flat. It then changes to a "lugubrious interlude" in C sharp minor, "with the dominant pedal never ceasing, a basso ostinato".[7] The repeating A flat, which has been heard throughout the first section, here becomes more insistent. Following this, the prelude ends with a repetition of the original theme. Niecks says, "This C sharp minor portion...affects one like an oppressive dream; the re-entrance of the opening D flat major, which dispels the dreadful nightmare, comes upon one with the smiling freshness of dear, familiar nature – only after these horrors of the imagination can its serene beauty be fully appreciated.[6]

Cultural legacy

  • In the 1979 James Bond movie Moonraker, villain "Sir Hugo Drax" plays the Raindrop Prelude in his chateau on a grand piano when Bond comes to visit.
  • The raindrop prelude is also featured on the soundtrack of the 1996 Australian film Shine about the life of pianist David Helfgott.
  • The prelude appears in the Crows section of Akira Kurosawa's film Dreams.
  • The prelude appears in the 1990 film "Captain America," as the title hero plays the song in order to stop Red Skull from detonating a bomb to destroy all of Southern Europe.
  • The dramatic bridge of the prelude was used in a marketing program for Halo 3, a science fiction video game.
  • The piece appears in the John Woo film Face/Off in a seduction scene between Castor Troy and Eve Archer.
  • The prelude appears in the fantasy video game Eternal Sonata, where Chopin's music plays a major part.
  • The piece is studied as a 'Set Work' in the English exam board Edexcel's GCSE in Music.
  • The piece is used in the film Margin Call, as Kevin Spacey sleeps in his office but is then woken up by the prelude's climax.

See also

References

  1. ^ WNYC.org
  2. ^ Huneker, James (1927). Chopin: The Man and his Music. p. 165. ISBN 1603035885. Retrieved 2011-03-22.
  3. ^ Huneker (1927), p. 166
  4. ^ Dayan, Peter (2006). Music Writing Literature, from Sand via Debussy to Derrida. Ashgate Publishing. p. 8. ISBN 0754651932. Retrieved 2011-03-22.
  5. ^ Dayan (2006), p. 6
  6. ^ a b Niecks, Frederick (2009). Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician. Echo Library. p. 493. ISBN 1406852295. Retrieved 2011-03-22.
  7. ^ Huneker (1927), p. 177

External links

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