0:00 Introduction with Loki.
0:28 Chopin and the advance of harmonic vocabulary
1:10 The Preludes, Chopin and George Sand
1:31 Chopin and improvisation
2:27 Improvisation and composition, a historical perspective.
3:07 The structure and key relationships of the Preludes
3:31 Simplicity and complexity
4:01 A huge compendium of Chopin’s virtuosity
4:20 A comparison with James Joyce
5:51 The E minor is a Lament
5:13 Dido’s Lament by Purcell.
5:54 The Passus Duriusculus
6:35 Bach’s Crucifixus
7:29 Beethoven’s 9th Symphony
8:29 Chopin’s lament breaks with tradition
10:03 The pedal note and the sigh
11:20 The chromatic descent in 3 parts
13:05 Chopin’s magical harmony
14:51 The first half: more and more poignant
17:16 The second half: faster and more turbulent
20:33 Contemporary criticisms of Chopin in the London Press in the 1840s
23:16 Chopin, the radical: new vistas, new colours, new harmonic possibilities.
24:17 Chopin’s E min or Prelude (with animated commentary)


This video is an introduction to Chopin’s Prelude in E minor: the quintessential Romantic lament, popular among virtuoso pianists and amateur players alike. Composed in the late 1830s, Chopin discovered new, unexplored harmonic possibilities in this apparently simple music, creating a wonderfully concise and poetic depiction of melancholy in just two ’sentences’: each one consisting of a sighing melody of fixed notes in the right hand over subtly shifting chords in the left hand. As it progresses in long, descending chromatic lines (in all 3 parts) from tonic to dominant, the music gives rise to a rich and labyrinthine pathway of magically coloured harmonies.

Apologies for the slightly fuzzy resolution on this video. Matthew had the camera on the wrong setting!

Chopin Prelude in E minor Op 28 no. 4.

Pianist: Matthew King.

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Alfred Cortot’s wonderfully evocative, almost improvisatory 1933 recording can be heard here:    • Alfred Cortot, Chopin Prelude No. 4, ...  
Blechacz's recording of the complete Op.28 preludes can be heard here:    • Chopin: 24 Preludes, Op.28 (Blechacz)  


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