Prelude (music) facts for kids

A prelude is a short piece of music. Its shape and style can change a lot from one piece to another.

In the olden days, like the Baroque era (around 1600s-1700s), a prelude was often an introduction to a longer, more complex musical work. Think of it like a warm-up act before the main show! But later, during the Romantic era (around 1800s), preludes became stand-alone pieces. They didn't need to introduce anything else.

Preludes usually have a few simple musical ideas or motifs (short musical phrases) that repeat throughout the piece. They often sound like they are being made up on the spot, almost like a musical improvisation. Sometimes, the word "prelude" can also mean an overture, which is the music played at the very beginning of an opera or a big musical story called an oratorio.

History of Preludes
Notable Collections of Preludes
See also

History of Preludes

The very first preludes that were written down were pieces for the organ. They were played to introduce church music. The oldest examples we still have are five short "praeambula" from a book called the Ileborgh Tablature in 1448.

Soon after, composers started writing free-style preludes for the lute and other string instruments from the Renaissance period. These were first used by musicians to warm up their fingers and check if their instrument was in tune and sounded good. For example, a composer named Joan Ambrosio Dalza published some pieces in 1508 called tastar de corde, which means "testing of the strings" in Italian.

Keyboard Preludes Emerge

Keyboard preludes began to appear in France in the 1600s. These were often "unmeasured preludes." This means the musician could decide how long each note should last, giving them a lot of freedom. They were used as introductions in harpsichord suites (collections of dance pieces).

Louis Couperin (who lived from about 1626 to 1661) was one of the first composers to really use this style. Harpsichord preludes were popular until the early 1700s. Many composers used them, including Jean-Henri d'Anglebert, Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, François Couperin, and Jean-Philippe Rameau. Rameau's very first piece that was printed (in 1706) was an unmeasured prelude. The last unmeasured preludes for harpsichord were written around the 1720s.

Preludes in Germany

In 17th-century Germany, preludes started to become more structured. They were similar to keyboard toccatas by composers like Johann Jakob Froberger. Preludes by northern German composers such as Dieterich Buxtehude (around 1637–1707) and Nikolaus Bruhns (around 1665–1697) mixed parts that sounded freely improvised with sections that followed strict contrapuntal rules (like short fugues). Outside Germany, Abraham van den Kerckhoven used this style too. However, composers in southern and central Germany kept their preludes more improvisational and less strict.

In the second half of the 1600s, German composers began to pair preludes (or sometimes toccatas) with fugues in the same key. Johann Pachelbel (around 1653–1706) was one of the first to do this. But Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) wrote many more famous "prelude and fugue" pieces. Bach's organ preludes were very varied, showing influences from both northern and southern German styles. Many of Bach's preludes used a "theme and variation" form. This means they took a main musical idea and changed it in different ways, like playing it backward or upside down.

Bach's Influence

Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer was one of the first German composers to bring the French style of the late 1600s to German harpsichord music. He replaced the usual French overture with an unmeasured prelude. Fischer's Ariadne musica is a collection of keyboard music with pairs of preludes and fugues. The preludes in this collection are quite different from each other.

Ariadne musica was an important step before Johann Sebastian Bach's famous The Well-Tempered Clavier. This work has two books, each with 24 pairs of preludes and fugues. Bach's preludes were also very diverse. Some sounded like Baroque dances, while others were complex contrapuntal pieces, similar to his inventions. Bach also wrote preludes to introduce each of his English Suites.

The Romantic Era and Beyond

The Well-Tempered Clavier had a huge impact on many composers for centuries. Some composers wrote sets of 12 or 24 preludes, often trying to use all 24 major and minor keys, just as Bach had done.

Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) wrote a famous set of 24 preludes, Op. 28. These pieces often had a simple three-part form. Chopin's preludes were different because they were no longer just introductions. They became independent concert pieces that could be played on their own. While other composers had published prelude collections before, Chopin's set made the genre popular again.

Chopin's preludes inspired many other collections of 24 or 25 piano preludes in major and minor keys. These include works by Charles-Valentin Alkan, Ferruccio Busoni, César Cui, Stephen Heller, and Alexander Scriabin.

Claude Debussy (1862–1918) wrote two books of impressionistic piano preludes. What's special about his preludes is that they have descriptive titles, which was unusual for this type of music. Chopin's idea of a prelude as a "character piece" (a short piece expressing a mood) continued into the 20th century. Composers like George Gershwin, Alberto Ginastera, Dmitry Kabalevsky, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and Karol Szymanowski wrote preludes that expressed feelings rather than telling a specific story.

Some 20th-century composers also put preludes into Baroque-inspired suites. Examples include Maurice Ravel's Le tombeau de Couperin (1914/17) and Arnold Schoenberg's Suite for piano, Op. 25 (1921/23). Both of these start with an introductory prelude.

Dmitri Shostakovich wrote a set of 24 Preludes and Fugues in 1951, following Bach's tradition. He also composed an earlier set of 24 Preludes for piano.

Some avant-garde composers also created stand-alone preludes. John Cage's short Prelude for Meditation is for a prepared piano (a piano with objects placed on its strings to change the sound). Other composers like François-Bernard Mâche and Branimir Sakač used electronic sounds and aleatoric (chance-based) techniques in their preludes.

Notable Collections of Preludes

Charles-Valentin Alkan (1813–1888) wrote 25 preludes, Op. 31, published in 1847. His key pattern was a bit different from Chopin's. He also gave some of his preludes descriptive titles, like The Song of the Madwoman by the Seashore.
Lera Auerbach (born 1973) wrote three full sets of 24 preludes. These cycle through all major and minor keys for piano solo, violin and piano, and cello and piano (2003).
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) wrote the two volumes of The Well-Tempered Clavier (1722, 1744). Both volumes have 24 preludes (and their matching fugues). They go up the chromatic scale (all the notes in order), alternating between major and minor keys.
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) wrote two preludes, Op. 39, when he was a teenager. Each one goes through all the major keys on the piano.
York Bowen (1884–1961) wrote 24 preludes, Op. 102, in 1938. It includes all major and minor keys and was published after he died.
Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) wrote 24 Preludes, Op. 28. These go through all the major and minor keys. The odd-numbered preludes are in major keys, starting with C major, and each is followed by a prelude in its relative minor key. Most of these can be played as separate pieces.
Claude Debussy (1862–1918) wrote two books of 12 Préludes, Book 1 (1910) and Book 2 (1913), making 24 preludes in total. The title of each prelude is given at the end of the piece.
Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer (around 1656 – 1746)'s Ariadne musica (1702) had 20 preludes and fugues in 19 different keys.
Alberto Ginastera (1916–1983) wrote a set of 12 American Preludes (1946).
Paul Hindemith (1895–1963) wrote Ludus Tonalis (1940), which includes a prelude, 11 interludes, and a postlude, all separated by 12 fugues.
Dmitry Kabalevsky (1904–1987) wrote many preludes for piano, including Op. 20 and Op. 38.
Nikolai Kapustin (1937–2020) wrote 24 Preludes in Jazz Style, Op. 53, and later a set of 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 82.
Olivier Messiaen (1908–1992)'s set of eight piano preludes (1929) were inspired by Debussy's impressionistic piano music.
Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887–1959) wrote 5 preludes for guitar (1940), which are very popular. A sixth prelude is now lost.
Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873–1943) wrote a famous prelude, Op. 3, No. 2, in 1892. He then wrote 10 preludes, Op. 23 (1903) and 13 preludes, Op. 32 (1910). This gave him a total of 24 preludes in all the major and minor keys.
Alexander Scriabin (1872–1915) wrote 24 Preludes, Op. 11 in 1896, and many shorter sets of preludes. He followed the same pattern as Chopin's preludes.
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975) wrote a cycle of 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87 in 1951. He also wrote an earlier set of 24 Preludes, Op. 34 (1933), for piano.
Matthias Vanden Gheyn (1721–1785) composed 11 preludes for the carillon, a musical instrument made of bells. These pieces are lively and show off the player's skill, with a strong bass rhythm. They are also the earliest known pieces written specifically for the carillon. Carillon players often call Vanden Gheyn "the Bach of the carillon" because of his preludes.