Blogtrek

Lost Love: Chopin's Prelude in B Minor

I don't know why Chopin wrote so many depressing preludes. They all seem to sound alike. They all could be funeral songs, it seems. Or wait. Maybe some are different. Chopin's Prelude in B minor, Opus 28, Number 6, sounds funereal. It sounds like someone grieving over a loved one that has been lost. So I call it "Lost Love". It could be a significant other that has left them for someone else. It could be a husband or wife that has recently passed away. It could even be for a person that has changed significantly, so they aren't the same person any more. That is what this prelude seems to me. It sounds different from the E minor prelude in that the E minor prelude is more haunting and pensive. It is different from C minor in that the C minor prelude is more formal and majestic. The B minor prelude may be written for the wrong instrument. Most of the melody is in the bass, so that this is really a cello solo. If you play it, the tricky part is to keep the right hand soft so that you don't hear its drone above the melody in the bass. Every once in a while the melody passes into the treble, so it is an interchange between the two parts. The piece does have a notational inconsistency. A note in a chord with a C sharp and an A sharp is written F double sharp, but later it is written G natural. This is causes by a notational paradox in the first instance; the note wants to be both F double sharp and G natural at the same time. Indeed this prelude is indeed a sad melody. Fortunately, tomorrow I will review a happier prelude.