Piano Street Magazine

Chopin Preludes – New Urtext Sheet Music

August 26th, 2010 in Piano Street Site News by | 6 comments

Written partly during Chopin’s catastrophic wintertime stay on Majorca, the 24 Preludes, opus 28, are some of the composer’s most mysterious works. Schumann said of them:
“They are sketches, beginnings of études, or, so to speak, ruins, individual eagle pinions, all disorder and wild confusions.”

The most well-known of these pieces is undoubtedly the “Raindrop” Prelude (opus 28 no 15) :

Although many of these pieces are not less of a challenge for pianists than some of Chopin’s Etudes, there are a few which are often played by less experienced players:

Prelude no 4 in E minor:

FREE DOWNLOAD:
Prelude no 4 in E minor

Prelude no 6 in B minor:

Prelude no 7 in A major:

Prelude no 20 in C minor:

The Preludes op 28 as well as two other preludes, Opus 45 in C-sharp minor and Opus posth. (in A-flat Major) are now available as urtext scores to download and print from Piano Street’s online sheet music library.
Similar to the collections of Nocturnes and Ballades, published earlier this year this new edition by Piano Street attempts to present the most valid version of these pieces following consensus among today’s prominent scholars and pianists. The edition has Chopin’s own fingering only and for anyone needing further advice on fingering we refer to the edition by Herrmann Scholtz, also available for downloading.

Comments

  • Tony Gray says:

    I never heard the Prelude Opus 45. By looking at the score it seems an interesting piece of music, reminding me about Rachmaninoff! I will print it out and give it a try.

  • melissa says:

    Thanks for the download of the amazing e minor prelude. This piece is really chopin in a nutshell but in a really small format. Nice lookng score!

  • leopard_pianist_94 says:

    The editions which were published by Alfred Cortot are the best ones for playing Chopin, not both Urtext and something else..

  • piano tutorials says:

    Thanks for your work im very thankful for your kindness that you share it to us..

  • nearenough says:

    The Preludes have long held me spellbound. They are Op 28, nearing the middle period of his genius, but are preludes to what? And were they all written down in a burst — a collection that he suddenly decided to finalize, or were they memorabilia of years past, of careful jottings and notes that he decided were worthy of permanency? They are utterly different from each other. Some sound like etudes, too short to label them as such. Others little dances. Yet others strange dreams and murmurings unclassifiable into anything ever heard before. Most introductions in music collections say little of adventures that went into their composition; most biographies give short-shrift to our modest inquiries as to their generation. Can anyone explain what went though Chopin’s mind as he was formulating this collection?

  • zezhyrule says:

    I love Chopin’s collection of preludes! Nos. 15, 17, and 24 are my favorite.

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