Prelude in C major, Op.32, No.1: allegro vivace

Although Rachmaninov’s preludes were less systematically assembled than Chopin’s or Scriabin’s, he did in the end write one in each of the twenty-four major and minor keys. Beginning with the youthful shocker in C sharp minor, Op.3, No.2, in 1892, he added the Ten Preludes, Op.23, in 1903 and completed the series seven years later with the Thirteen Preludes, Op.32. They are not, however, arranged in a pre-ordained sequence of tonalities, as Chopin’s Op.28 and Scriabin’s Op.11 are. They also resist formal categorisation in that they are so variable in length and - since they written at three significantly different periods in the composer’s development - so diverse in style and character. The difference between the Op.23 set and the Op.32 set is roughly equivalent to that between the Piano Concerto No.2 in C minor, Op.18, and the Piano Concerto No.3 in D minor, Op. 30.

The source of inspiration in the Op.32 set was less often an emotional state, important though that element still was, than a brilliant technical idea. In No.1 in C major, the shortest and one of the most energetic of all the twenty-four preludes, surging left-hand arpeggios constantly hit upon an alien A flat or B flat and deflect the harmonies in impulsive tangents away from the key centre. The poignancy of the purely lyrical No.5 in G major, though it obviously has much to do with its expressive melodic line, derives in part from the elaborate rhythmic contradictions contained in the two hands and from a decorative style somewhere between baroque and birdsong.

The Prelude No.7 in C minor from the Op.23 set, on the other hand, is an emotionally powered projectile from the Piano Concerto in the same key. Fragments of melody form against an unceasing torrent of semiquavers, chiming high in the right hand at first and then tolling in heavy octaves low in the left. The final appeasement is as effective as it is unexpected.

Gerald Larner©