Prelude In C-sharp Minor (Rachmaninoff)
Prelude in C-sharp minor (Russian: Прелюдия), Op. 3, No. 2, is one of Sergei Rachmaninoff's most famous compositions. It is a ternary (ABA) prelude for piano in C-sharp minor, 62 measures long, and part of a set of five pieces entitled Morceaux de fantaisie.
Its first performance was by the composer on September 20, 1892, at a festival called the Moscow Electrical Exhibition, which Rachmaninoff considered his debut as a pianist. After this première, a review of the concert singled out the Prelude, noting that it had “aroused enthusiasm”. From this point on, its popularity grew.
Rachmaninoff later published 23 more preludes to complete a set of 24 preludes covering all the major and minor keys, to emulate earlier sets by Bach, Chopin, Alkan, Scriabin and others.
Read more about Prelude In C-sharp Minor (Rachmaninoff): Background, Composition, Reception, Popular Culture
Famous quotes containing the words prelude and/or minor:
“I got a little secretarial job after college, but I thought of it as a prelude. Education, work, whatever you did before marriage, was only a prelude to your real life, which was marriage.”
—Bonnie Carr (c. early 1930s)
“People are too apt to treat God as if he were a minor royalty.”
—Herbert Beerbohm, Sir Tree (1853–1917)