Blogtrek

Frantic: Chopin's Prelude in F-sharp Minor

Opus 28 Number 8 reminds me of some of the angry-mood pieces of Beethoven such as the Appassionata Sonata and the third movement of the Moonlight Sonata. This one has a driving melody in the treble with a descending triplet bass. It also has an obbligato in the treble written with small notes. When I hear the piece I wonder how one can move one's hand so fast on the keys, but I tried it once and found that the notes were selected to fit into the hand, so it is not that hard to catch its rhythm. Nevertheless, this is a difficult piece to play and I have not attempted to play it much. Instead, I put it into Cakewalk. When I do that I find that I have to double the melody notes, else they can't be heard over the din of the frantic obbligato. I feel that this piece sounds frantic, hence my name for it. Its discordant chromatic scales contribute to the agitation in the piece. It reaches a peak near the end and descends into a soft ending, finally concluding, like several of the other preludes, with three or four slow chords. To me this is the most Beethoven-like of Chopin's Opus 28 preludes.