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Welcome back everyone. To where is the music podcast. Today we're going to continue our journey into one of the most remarkable musical works ever written. I'm of course talking about the well tempered clavier by Johann Sebastian Bach.

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We actually have already introduced the whole work in a previous episode. I think from a couple of months ago and also looked at a couple of fugues from the first book.

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In fact, there are two books called well tempered Clavier, separated by some. Some around 20 years.

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So today we are going to take a different angle and following the previous the previous approach, the previous direction in which we are trying to do not much.

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Biographical or historical investigation, we are going to do instead musical investigation. So I have the books in front of me.

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I'm as usual at my piano and nonetheless I'm going to do a little bit of presentation as an introduction to the topic of today, cause you might have guessed it from the title of the podcast, this is about.

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The prelude, the well tempered Clavier, is a work. It's a collection of preludes and fugues paired.

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By their key. So each key is allocated up prelude in a few, and we have spent already a little bit of time looking at what is a field and back style in in construct and goes through in a.

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Few.

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But the prelude.

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Is a little bit of a more open-ended story, open-ended genre, cause.

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As we shall see, there is not one.

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Way of creating a prelude. And so we're going to answer the question, what is a prelude? The prelude is, is a genre, is instrumental piece of music that was initially before, but this time. So we're talking about the.

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15 and 1600, when it was notated, he was considered as a introduction to.

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Let's say a more important piece of music as a matter of fact, I mentioned when it was notated because most of that most of the times it was just left to improvisation, so the performer would introduce the piece of music, perhaps even an ensemble piece of music or a sung.

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Work by either a single singer or choir and would introduce the music with an improvisation. It makes sense that that would be that music would needed some some introduction for the simple reason that.

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If you think about, for example, religious gatherings, such a such a mass before before the service, the music will serve for as a way to, let's say, to set the stage to set the mood for what is about to happen.

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So but at the same time, if you think about a choir or a singer who is about to sing a a piece, then they would need the key the notes to to start from and so.

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So it wasn't just because of an aesthetic intention or circumstantial occasion that this piece started being used was actually very practical reasons. Later on this opening.

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This overture started

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Giving more and more dignity and composers focused on such genre as a matter of fact, this genre never really had one particular form. We're going to see how bar takes all the forms.

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That are around him that have been developed and used by pre composers that are previous to him.

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And put them all together into this book. And actually he wrote a great variety of preludes outside his well tempered clavier. But after back and particularly I'm referring to the romantic period.

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A number of composers, most notably Frederic Chopin, wrote a collection of 24 preludes in all the keys following the same model of Johann Sebastian Bach.

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So in that case, the prelude has become a stand alone piece is not there to introduce anything, but it's there just to be itself. Further, if we go, if we go beyond the romantic era.

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Music.

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We find the 24 preludes by Debussy, who conceived those, as well as stand alone pieces. There is a whole new aesthetic attached to it, but the freedom that.

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Was inherited already by Bach in the creation of these pieces is maintained well throughout both chopins and the you see in the.

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20th century. There are many composers who have named their pieces preludes or who have included preludes in their larger work and thinking of.

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Ravel in Tombeau De Couperin the first piece of the suite is prelude but also Schomberg and thinking of Gershwin's Preludes, Ginastera Kabalevsky, Olivier Messiaen famously.

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Importantly, Rachmaninov wrote, completed collections of piano preludes.

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And the most remarkable perhaps reference of preludes of the 20th century is reference. I mean two backs ones are by Dimitri Shostakovich. He wrote a huge collection of preludes and fugues.

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Also organised by.

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Key in the exact same manner as as Johann Sebastian Bach did 200 years before, more than 200 years before. So what we're going to do is have a look. I'm going to focus mainly today on the 1st.

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Of two books and I'm going to see if we can find some some general characteristics of this prelude, by the way. Prelude is not even precise term, because by Prelude we just.

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The at the time of bar, which just literally means something to be played before a more, let's say, serious piece of music. So the serious piece of music, we mean the fugue something that.

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Follows strict rules of composition and that.

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As characters, implications and aesthetics, let's say goals. So as a matter of fact, perhaps the best way to characterise initially the prelude is by being in contrast with with such fugal.

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Contrapuntal and.

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Compositional aesthetics as a matter of fact, the prelude tends to be quite free and maintain light and open and improvisatory style throughout. Even in the case of park. Nevertheless, we are still talking about one of the greatest geniuses of composition, therefore.

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This collection of preludes is incredible in terms of variety and creativity.

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What I'm going to do is to collect or organise or somehow present groups of preludes that share some common musical quality. Perhaps we can call them compositional trades.

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The collection of the first book of well tempered Clavier starts with this famous one.

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And what is it? This is an harmonic opening where the listener is supposed to somehow.

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Be invited into a rich harmonic world in a delicate and elegant and and and.

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Gracious way. Practically speaking, we are talking about our pages and there are a variety of preludes that employ a very similar approach. Very similar technique. For example the the C#.

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So you can tell that they are harmonic flow is what Bach is aiming at. Once again, it sounds like a.

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Very elegant and gracious opening and introduction. I also found out that it's very likely that he has written this in a much easier key than C#. Very likely this could have been written in C major.

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And then being transposed to C.

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Another example of our pages is the one in G major that goes like this.

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Etcetera. You notice how the the virtuosity here is really quite.

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Remarkable because it is possible that at the at the harpsichord these species were just a little bit easier than they are at the piano, but nevertheless.

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The the reach of the hand, the variety of techniques that are necessary to perform this fluently are quite outstanding compared to his time compared to the other other music that was written at the same time. Let's look into this other one that.

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I might put into the same group we're talking about our pagination, our pages and.

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In comparison to the first one where our pages are pretty static and the hand somehow needs to.

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Just.

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Get the position and then.

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Repeat the position right in the case of the D minor one, we find that the hand needs to move laterally quite a lot.

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That's quite interesting. Let's see how with the left hand, how this works.

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Also one can tell this is quite virtuosic. Now there are other categories, other types of preludes that we can that we can find. This is already a little glimpse of Bachs interest, so chords and harmonies.

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Far away, of course, for exploring a musical world, but also to develop practical technique.

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This technique of course has to do with how the hand operates at the keyboard, and the C minor one offers an example of a very peculiar technique that use the shape of the hand in order to develop.

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Particular ability the C, the C minor is this one. You might have heard it.

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So the if I look into the right hand, I see a high note and.

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Low one.

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So this technique is somehow managed presented at least as a way to develop the evenness of fingers.

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Highlighting our kind of accent in the the weakest one, the pinky and the thumb.

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Etc. The left hand.

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Does exactly the same or very similar in the mirrored way.

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So together.

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Damn it. OK. But if I don't stop somewhere, I'm going to play everything until the end, and then we're never going to finish this episode.

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A similar technique is employed in the D major one, which I can't find the major one that has a completely different character but has a similar approach which is.

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You can hear the low note low.

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Hi.

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Hello.

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Hi.

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OK. Hence together this sounds like.

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You see first mistake. I better stop. OK, so let's continue. We've got a couple more examples from this.

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Hands, let's say fingers development. This time it's in E minor, the E minor prelude has a similar type of figure, this time in the.

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Left hand.

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Bach is.

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Masterful in.

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Adding to the right hand something that is contrastingly beautiful.

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Isn't that something? So the next example similarly will be instead for the right end once again in standard prelude in F major.

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I really like this prelude because one can take it in a very it's a proper, elegant 1700 style.

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Or you can add a little bit of craziness and.

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It makes makes me think of the famous LA Folia by I think Jimmy Nani. Let's hear it.

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Exit.

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Yeah, something like that. There is certainly a lot of character from this note to be taken out. The difficulty for the modern interpreter is apart from the technique that one has to of course develop, but also to.

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Umm.

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See where the character is with regards to phrasing dynamics with regards to the style, articulation and and so forth. Remember that this music has almost 0 signs in the sense of articulation sign.

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Dynamic sign phrasing signs.

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In a sense, for bar, but also for his contemporaries, it's it's taken for granted that you are well enough into the musical education and the culture and the style of the time.

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That you know already how to interpret it, and if not, you are supposed.

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Search and investigate and educate yourself to the to the details and the music requires. This is something particularly hard for us nowadays, not only because 300 years has passed, but also because we have a completely different.

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Idea of style and this is probably a good topic for a different podcast. There is another let's say.

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Category group of Preludes that could be put together and.

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I'm looking at the E flat minor and the B flat minor which have a chords and melody type of construction. And here is the effect minor a beautiful.

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Example of very inspired Melody.

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Isn't that something? This is, by the way, the prelude that introduces the few that we have looked at a few months ago.

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These two pairs are certainly one of my personal favourites and the reason is probably because they are. They have so much pathos, so much contemplative, profound, profound duty.

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It's to me it's just difficult to say exactly, to translate in words. As usual, the beauty of this music. So here we have another kind of melody and chordal approach to to the prelude. This is the B flat minor.

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This will open the floor to another jar, what I call the the concerto type of prelude. By concerto, I mean concertante style, which is a way of creating music. Where?

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You don't have, let's say, consistent separate melodies that that work in tandem, such as two parts Inventions, but also such as melody, accompanied by courts or or are pages you have.

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Sort of.

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Sort of dialogue between the parts which involves dynamics, meaning moments in which the entire ensemble, if we think about a concert ensemble, maybe strings or even an orchestra, you will have.

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A section of it performing sometimes to be answered by a different section. Sometimes you will have soloists, other times you will.

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Everyone at once called tutti, so there are preludes that hint at this style. We just heard a little bit of this style in here where in this the last one I played minor where you have.

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Sometimes the top parts singing and other times the bottom one and sometimes everyone together. So in the a flat major you have a sense of similar style. And by the way.

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You might recognise the character more similar to Brandenburg concertos, for example.

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Etcetera.

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You can tell that this music is written for keyboard, but can be totally be set for a larger orchestra. The other example of this style is the one in a minor, at least one that I really enjoy. I'm sure if you.

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If you spend some time, you might find plenty of examples throughout. This is the a minor.

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Etcetera. This has been a while I haven't. I haven't played it. You can tell this back and forth of.

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2T ensemble and sections and you can you can also hear the dynamics coming through. Think of for example this figure.

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Isn't that a crescendo? If it's not? Well, I'm not sure. What am I going to do? I just.

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Believe it is a crescendo. Then the final groups. We can find inventions by inventions. I mean compositions where you have.

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Two or three separate parts you probably are aware that among his keyboard production bar wrote two parts inventions and three-part invention called symphonies.

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Uh.

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These are particularly the two parts are very much still part of the repertoire, especially for students, and we have two great examples of two-part invention. One is in F# major and the other one is in.

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F# minor here is the F# major, which is I think, delightful.

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Etcetera. And here is the F# major completely different character.

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Etcetera.

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OK. We are about to end this initial introduction on the preludes and we're going to look at the three-part inventions and we've got few examples, three-part inventions like the E major one.

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So this is prelude in three parts in E major at at the same time.

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The freedom at which he approaches this type of composition comes out in little details. I find this in three parts, but there are passages actually of four.

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Just this one bar.

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This is 2 parts.

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This is also two parts which interestingly mirror each other.

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Another example would be the one in B major and the following one in B minor. So the B major is.

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Very particular with regard to, I think for me at least touches my heart because it's so, so delicate and gracious.

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I couldn’t interrupt it.

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And as previously mentioned, the B minor one another jewel.

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This is just the first half. This concludes our journey into the preludes of the well tempered Clavier. I hope I've given you a little bit of a broad picture of of of what's in it there is obviously.

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So much more to say and also to listen to it will take many hours to.

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Perform them properly and to commend them, particularly perhaps in the next episode. I will say that it's very important to add to the list of the categories we saw. We've seen their pages, the 2-3 parts invention, the company Melody.

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We looked at the particular techniques for the hand and also the concerto and the concerto style. It's important to add a feature of this.

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Collection which is the Fantasia style, the free improvisatory style that appears here and there with great invention by the masterful composer from Leipzig. It is good to point out that.

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The the general technique used by your Sebastian Bach for composing his music and also including this prelude is called the counterpoint, and I happen to.

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I have a course on that design for beginner intermediate pianist. Quite fun, so there will be a link in the description about it and I'm going to leave you with something completely different. Of course it is a prelude by.

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Not by Johann Sebastian Bach by Chopin. This is the Opus 45 stand alone piece. You can probably hear you for sure will hear.

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Characteristic of this prelude to be quite, quite intense, quite long, nevertheless, certainly has the effect of letting us long, long for something.

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For something to happen and the typical very peculiar sense of longing portrayed by romantic composers, I believe here comes.

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Very well. The interpretation is by pianist who sadly passed away a few days ago. Maurizio Pollini legend.

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Of International piano music. So here is.

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Maurizio Pollini in a personal homage from me, playing Opus 45, Prelude in C# minor by Frederick Chopin.