Stepping even further into the world of piano music we have Rachmaninoff’s G Minor Prelude which is triumphant and yet overshadowed piece of music. It clearly shows that Rachmaninoff was indeed the last gasp of the Romantic Era. The thumping stampede of the opening bars is a fabulous passage followed by the brief section that is more rubato and melodic. This section is less pragmatic with chords but is nonetheless a very important section of the work. You can’t have one section of the prelude without the other. They both go together like a hand in a glove. The soft section guides along swiftly as if on a wave, but comes back to the galloping, horse-like chord pronunciations that started the piece. This piece was finished in 1901 right in the middle of his career. He was amid demanding piano concert tours as a virtuoso piano player which somewhat stifled his compositional output. Looking over his biography where he started composing at St. Petersburg Conservatory at the tender age of ten years old and composed with such groundbreaking color and musical force. The depth of richness of his piano works alone (orchestral work notwithstanding) is just awesome. This prelude was composed after a depression that lasted three years, in which during this time, he composed almost nothing at all due to self-criticism. Depression brings at the best in creative people and especially composers. This was his triumphant response to his depression (or at least one of them). I have had the joy of seeing piano friends of mine actually playing this piece and wondering if there is a way that I could ever play this. It is simply a fantastic thing to see this piece in action. Depression can fuel and fill your creativity that lacks at one point or another. Look for this piece on his Ten Piano Preludes. This is opus number 23.
