Belongs to Chopin's 24 Preludes, Op. 28, a set of short pieces for the piano, one in each of the twenty-four keys, originally published in 1839. Chopin wrote them between 1835 and 1839, partly at Valldemossa, Majorca, where he spent the winter of 1838-39 and where he had fled with George Sand and her children to escape the damp Paris weather. In Majorca, Chopin had a copy of Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier, and as in each of Bach's two sets of preludes and fugues, his Op. 28 set comprises a complete cycle of the major and minor keys, albeit with a different ordering. The second prelude sets up an immediate contrast, with a slow melody over a fixed accompaniment of four-note chords played two eighth notes at a time. It’s mood and/or theme is characterized by painful meditation, the distant, deserted sea, the presentiment of death.
WAV
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