Op. 28 No. 20. Thirteen bars of slow, heavy chords, like a funeral procession, fading from loud to very soft.
The story
This prelude is only thirteen bars long, and every beat is a full chord. It begins loudly, like a procession, and the same phrase returns quieter and quieter.
Composers have kept coming back to it: Busoni and Rachmaninoff both wrote sets of variations on it.
Two things to know
- The last chord is held for a whole bar, marked as soft as possible.
- It is often called the “Chord” prelude.
How to play it
Play every chord as one sound, all the notes landing together, and keep the top note singing.