Preludes

Chopin's name is forevermore connected with the piano. He was a fabulous pianist, improviser, and, of course, composer with a very unique, personal style that is characterized by a sense of rubato, allusions to Polish folk music, and grace and melancholy contrasted with virtuosity, pride, and heroic gestures. No other cycle of works wields such an appeal as his Preludes, op. 28. He completed them shortly before his 29th birthday while spending a winter in Mallorca with George Sand and her children.

This Urtext collection of nine preludes offers Chopin's own fingerings and those of his pupils as well as supplementary historically informed fingerings and notes on historical performance practice, specifically on the use of the pedal, ornamentation, "finger pedaling," latent polyphony (cantilena), dynamics, rubato, and tempo.