Chopin Prelude 4

I played this piece myself, and it’s funny how much I was hearing where your interpretation differed from mine. It was as if I had a template of mine overlaying your performance and my brain was checking off each discrepancy, “Nope, different here… uh-uh, not the same there.” So I had to listen to it another time to really listen to it. The conclusion? Beautiful. Plus, I finally got a good set of headphones and can hear the fabulous pianissimo of the last three chords.

“I realize just now as I write this that my first lesson with Don would have been ten years ago this month. Gosh.”

Yep - we’re old ;-)

Ahree — I always have that experience listening to other people’s versions of pieces I play, and it can be quite hard to overcome it and accept the different interpretation. I find I’m open to new interpretations when I’ve just started learning something, and when I’ve been playing it for a long time. But there’s a period in between when I simply cannot hear anybody else’s version. It’s actually ruined some fine performances by others for me! Anyway, I’m glad you liked my version OK!

Marisa — You have made the unspoken spoken. Word up.

My teacher assigned me this piece. It is actually fun. The recording was really good. Thanks!

The recording helps get a feel for the piece. It’s an awesome piece ay!

Hinting to my teacher I’d like to do something by Chopin, she hinted back that Chopin’s Prelude Op.28 No.4 is in my future. Of the complete recordings I’ve listened to, they’re all either less than 2 min. or more than 2:30+ in length – either with anxious left hand chords or else much more pensively – in between apparently doesn’t work. Except for Martha Argerich’s faster interpretation, I like the more pensive versions – yours is excellent and certainly one I’ll be listening to over and over as I create my own interpretation! Thanks for such a wonderful blog site! I found it exploring for Chopin recommendations - thanks for all the insights!

I liked your comment (with Chopin Nocturne Op. 55 No.1) that it’s never too late to start piano lessons and noticed that some of the comments on your pages are of the “Iwish I could play” variety. Hopefully the following comments are helpful. Since Prelude No.4 is sometimes assigned to novices I thought it was appropriate here.

For classical piano, any healthy person can learn to play, but be prepared to study for several years or more if you want to be impressively expressive. To learn as quickly and properly as possible, take your lessons from a professional whose primary instrument is the piano: find the best master teacher you can and be prepared to work hard. You may find one at a local college if it has a good adult program. Paul, I see that your mentor, Don Betts, is acclaimed both as a pianist and as a college teacher.

I, now 56, started piano at 53 and spent two and a half years at a low cost studio, believing I was being well instructed. I then heard a teacher at a prestigious music college play at a seminar and instantly understood what Salieri felt when he said, in the movie “Amadeus”: “It was as if I was hearing the very voice of God.”

I sought her out after the seminar and thus stumbled – seven months ago - into the adult program at Baltimore’s Peabody Institute and my learning curve, which had been leveling off, is now shooting almost straight up. I’m paying 1.5x for lessons but learning 3x as fast from a demanding, acclaimed master teacher and concert pianist – Frances Cheng-Koors.

When you learn from such a person you enthusiastically buy into whatever program she puts in place for you because of her reputation. So I worked hard on her assignments even though I was getting a little tired of her concentration on technique, technique, and technique – until I started getting comments from friends about how much better my playing sounds!

Thanks for the thoughtful comments, Mickey. John Cage said something relevant that I like a lot. I don’t remember his exact wording, but it was essentialy: “Find a teacher you trust, and then trust them for a while.”

This is a very good site paul. The music that I hear is very very distinguished and clear. And I handed this lesson down to about 3 of my students and everywhere they go they just must have that great and ideal urge to be playing chopin. But this is a very nice and clean site soooooo keep up the good work =p

yo! Fryderyk Szopen rules! preludium no4 best!

Does anybody know the history or background to this piece? Why is it nicknamed “Suffocation”?

I have never heard the nickname “Suffocation;” that is almost certainly not Chopin’s — and it seems to me like a really bad nickname for the piece!

He most likely wrote it, along with the other preludes, on the island of Majorca. As to why he wrote it and what he was thinking at the time, I’m not sure that’s for us to know.

Paul, is there a theme, guiding principle, or visualization you thought about when playing this piece - particularly the first half? The slight delays in some of the right hand notes above the slightly meandering bass chords contribute very beautifully to the pensive mood of the piece.

When memorizing it recently I played it, metrically, exactly as written – and it sounded emotionless. Then my teacher explained how I could be more expressive: her interpretation is similar to yours. I went back to the several well-played recordings I have, including yours, and was amazed at how little conscious attention I paid to (I guess the term is) rubato when listening to it before.

Konrad Wolff (my teacher’s teacher) in his “Masters of the Keyboard” notes that someone said, “Chopin’s melodies float in a stream mainly carried by the lower voices.” That seems to apply here if you add a little meandering to the stream.

I’m still trying to make it feel right when I play it – I’m amazed that’s taking longer than it did to memorize the piece! Visualizing the stream helps me a little.

I don’t use any visualization, but pay a lot of attention to the ebb and flow of tension and resolution, so that there is a balance between creating anticipation for the next thing and answering the anticipation that came before.

Interpretation is indeed much harder than memorization. Memorization is just a task you eventually work through; interpretation has no clear boundaries and no end.

In answer to D. Glass’s May posting-

It was pianist Hans von Bulow who called Prelude 4 “Suffocation” well after Chopin’s death, a title not much accepted. However, George Sand’s daughter Solange Dudevant Clesinger claimed there is a title! See “Chopin: Pianist and Teacher as Seen by His Pupils”, by Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger, paperback p. 281 for more details.

Solange wrote, “(My mother) George Sand gave a title to each of Chopin’s wonderful Preludes; these titles have been preserved on a score he gave to us.” Chopin and Sand lived together for 8 years. Solange must have been intimately familiar with the preludes since her family was virtually isolated for months on a rainy Majorca with the very ill Chopin as he composed many of them in an abandoned, leaky monastery.

That titled score is lost, but Eigeldinger claims many of the themes cited by Solange match Sand’s own text about the Preludes and analysis can yield the names of some of Sand’s titles. Solange’s recollection of, “What melancholy raindrops…?” obviously applies to No. 15, the “Raindrop” prelude. One theme seems to correspond only to number four: “Quelle larmes au fond du cloître humide?” which best translates as, “What tears (are shed) from the depths of the damp monastery?” – which would also mean that No. 4 was one of the preludes actually composed on Majorca.

I doubt if anyone will apply the title - and who cares as long as there are people who properly play the piece! But “Tears” seems to fit No. 4 well. It certainly reflects Chopin’s feeling of hopelessness while on Majorca: to “die away slowly” (which is his last dynamic notation on the music) would have been his fate if Sand hadn’t managed to overcome local sailors’ revulsion to Chopin’s (correctly) suspected tuberculosis and get him shipped to a good French doctor in Marseilles just in time.

And coincidentally: 1) in 1894, essayist Henry Finck wrote, “If tears could be heard, they would sound like these preludes.”
2) a recent Amazon.com review of pianist Evgeny Kissin’s CD of the preludes complains, “The tears below the surface of Prelude 4 are disregarded.”
Maybe Chopin subconsciously got the idea across better than anyone realizes!

I’d like to have the chords for Frederic Chopin’s Prelude Opus 28 No.4

i hate it

I really enjoyed your interpretation- I find hearing the way other people choose to handle the rubato and the dynamics opens up new avenue for me. Just today I have been struggling over the extended pause in the third to last bar- should there be complete silence, is the previous chord sustained- and I like the way you make sense of the final few bars with the through sustain bringing it quietly and melodically to rest.

Do other people use both pedals in the final two bars- it feels to me that it would work well.

Rachel: I say try it with and without the pause, with and without different pedals. Listen, and decide what works best. You may not come up with the same answer as others, and that is just fine!

Today I spoke by phone with my sister for the first time since her beloved husband passed away. She lives in Nova Scotia. When we got the unexpected bad news, all flights to Halifax were already fully booked with people flying home for Christmas, so I missed the memorial service at which one of her talented teen-age grandsons had played Chopin’s Prelude in E-minor in a small church packed with 200 people. I am writing to thank you for the great pleasure of having just listened to your very fine rendition of this poignant work, here at my daughter’s pc in Kelowna British Columbia.

For Norton and anyone else interested in Prelude 4 chords: there’s a great chord analysis at:

Now I find this to be probably Chopin’s simplest piece (as it is sight-readable), but it’s actually difficult to get this piece to sing as you do. Some people like to pound it out quickly than rather slowly pull out some passion and emotion. Very nice.

I am playing this piece currently and really enjoyed your interpretation. You play it with emotion but without being overly sappy. I am still ironing out technical kinks and my interpretation needs work.

Hello,

I just wanted to say I began formal piano lessons for my first time here at Monmouth College (IL), last semester. I took this piece to my instructor and have been slowly getting through it since the middle of January. By May I hope to be able to play it with both hands, on tempo, all the way through! It is quite a struggle for me. I GREATLY appreciate this site and its tremendous resources for lovers of Chopin.
Thank You

• Daniel

Hello, Paul.

As a 56 year old adult piano player who is once again taking lessons, I want to thank you for posting your interpretation of this excellent work by Chopin. I am quite enthralled by your playing of this exquisite piece – so much so that I have changed my own interpretation to better emulate yours as I believe it to be the very soul of Chopin’s own interpretation of his Prelude #4. I shall be performing this piece in April, 2007 at my music studio’s semi-annual recital (can you believe me with all the children!) and am looking forward to presenting it with all of the depth and emotional interpretation it deserves.

Thanks, Gary! Have fun performing it — and three cheers to you for being bold and jumping into the piano with all the kids! It is never too soon or too late to make music.

If I may be indulged a question, Paul. I’m having problems “hearing” as well as playing the gruppetto (the turn)in the 17th measure. I understand how to play the turn but am not sure on what note it should start – the A# or the G? Also, I see the double sharp sign ( x ) and the best I’ve been able to research is that the third note in the turn should be double-sharped. Am I correct in my assumptions? Thanks, in advance, for your answer.

Gary: you understood the double sharp correctly: the turn is A# B A# Gx A#.

You have a lot of flexibility in how you execute ornaments, especially in Chopin. (He reportedly improvised slightly different ornaments every time he played a piece.) I place the ornament inside the second half of beat 2 (i.e. the fourth 8th note of the measure), and reiterate the A# when I start the turn — but that’s certainly not the only way to do it. Fool around, listen carefully, and figure out what works for your ears. There isn’t a single right answer.

Whatever you do, it has to make the leap up to the G# make sense. The sudden upward motion is a startling change and a very structurally important moment, and the turn is there to propel the music into it, and make the transition make sense. However you play it, that’s what it needs to accomplish.

There is one particular chord which is really hard to get. I could never get my e-mail answered so I managed to get it myself by listening. Womderful art peace.

Chopin-Prelude to Piano 4
I’m not a musician but first heard this in the Church of the Rock in Helsinki. It absolutely brought me to tears and has every time I hear it. Twice in movies I heard parts of it again (once in a movie w/Meg Tilly about a woman who murders her child to be with a man, and just now in The Notebook). I had to find the song and here it is… And, yet again, it completely captures the most encompassing and profound despair for which there is no relief. Don’t let anyone who is suicidal hear this song. Not sure why I had to write this but, thanks for letting me endure this very haunting work of art!

Re: Mr. Kashen’s post. I am so grateful. Has anyone who has never perceived hopelessness, melancholy or pensiveness, or felt the endless questioning of why(?), why me(?), or the why of existence itself (its joy and suffering) , or why the beloved never seems to come, let alone been afflicted with a disease that must have felt like perpetual drowning, themselves, been able to swim upstream to the origin of this piece? Melancholy has been described as the longing and yearning for the lover that never comes, never actually arrives, but also the deeper in- most reality of self that is always in the embrace of the beloved, if we could only awaken and recognize it. I have worked this piece and will probably work it the rest of my life, because yes, it’s creator is not me, but this creator and I share the same origin as humans. You know ,come to think of it, I am grateful for this site and everyone’s posts. Thank you

When you play it that slow and overly sentimentally, you take away the downward motion that characterizes the whole set and this piece in particular. The bass should melt together but be distinct, and too much rubato ruins it. Listen to Pollini for how to do it right.

ok, i found it! i heard (and commented) on your prelude 6 and i was wonderful but this ranks up there as one of my all time favorites. your rendition is masterful.

Hello everyone , I share your love of this prelude ,I am a beginner and I ve been looking for the music sheet of chopin prelude # 4 can you send it to me.Thank you

I’m learning to play this very piece and I found this rendition of it extremely helpful as I’m basically self teaching myself. It does sound like suffocating. :D Thanks for helping out intermediate pianists like me improve their playing.

How can I play my left hand base chords more quietly?

I used to take piano lessons, years ago, but my teacher was not very good at teaching and I lost all interest in ever playing again. That was when I was nine– now I’m sixteen, and after falling in love with this piece in my musicianship/ music analysis class, and teaching myself to play it, I’m willing to start playing again! Prelude 4 restored my love of piano :)

love the piano: Keep your wrist and arms relaxed, and pay close attention to how you touch the keys. Your piano will have its own limit of light touch where the hammers no longer reach the strings, and the note will not sound. Find where that limit is, and practice going right up to it without going over. A teacher in person could give you more specific help.

Liz: I’m glad to hear it! Never let a bad teacher keep you from what you love.

I think this piece is a bit too difficult for beginners to learn anything from it.