Part 7: Moods in Miniature - The Preludes (Ch. VII)

Part 7 of chopin-the-man-and-his-music (Chapter VII: Moods in Miniature - The Preludes).

Question this unit answers

What are the Preludes op. 28 as a set — where and when were they actually written, are they a unified cycle or a portfolio of fragments, and what does each of the twenty-four (plus op. 45) contain musically and emotionally? Huneker uses the chapter both to demolish the romantic legend that the Preludes were composed at Valdemosa on Majorca and to give a piece-by-piece critical walk through the set, with running commentary on the editorial disagreements between Klindworth, Kullak and Riemann.

Key terms

• Prelude (Chopin’s sense) — not an introduction to anything, but a self-contained mood picture; “free creations on a small basis” (Ehlert).
• Op. 28 — the set of twenty-four Preludes, published 1839; German edition dedicated to J. C. Kessler, French and English “a son ami Pleyel.”
• Op. 45 — the separate Prelude in C sharp minor, composed at Nohant August 1841, published December 1841, dedicated to Princess Elizabeth Czernicheff.
• Valdemosa legend — George Sand’s story that the B minor prelude (No. 6) was played the night she and Maurice returned through the storm; the origin of the “raindrop” reading.
• Imitative harmony — Sand’s term for the raindrop effect; Chopin himself rejected it as puerile ear-imitation.
• Character-etude — Kullak’s category for the more technically demanding Preludes, as opposed to the nocturne-like mood pictures.
• Thematic parallelism — Chopin’s device of repeating a small figure in descending keys (Huneker’s diagnosis of No. 2).
• Echo principle — the repeated-note or repeated-chord pedal effect linking No. 6 and No. 15.
• Basso ostinato / dominant pedal — the never-ceasing repeated bass note in No. 15 (D flat).
• Lycanthrope — Huneker’s figure for the self-hating, life-averse Chopin of the A minor prelude.
• Seelenschrei — “soul-cry” (Przybyszewski’s term), applied to the D minor finale, No. 24.
• Editorial sciolism — Huneker’s insult for pedantic editing, aimed at Riemann’s inserted E flat in No. 21.

Propositions

• The Valdemosa legend is largely false: most of the Preludes were already in Chopin’s portfolio in 1837-38, and his Majorcan work “were confined to selecting, filing and polishing” (Niecks, quoted Ch. VII).
• The morbidity of certain Preludes cannot date them, because “Chopin was faint and febrile in his music before he went to Majorca” (Ch. VII) — Willeby’s dating-by-atmosphere argument therefore fails.
• Chopin’s moods do not track his biography; he “cannot always be pinned down to any particular period,” being morbid early and gay near death (Ch. VII).
• George Sand’s testimony is romantic but unreliable — Huneker cites Henry James, “an old admirer,” conceding her “utter unreliability” (Ch. VII).
• The Preludes are a sheaf of moods, not a technical scheme; the title is “rather vague” and holds them only loosely together (Ch. VII).
• Chopin’s Preludes are “the only preludes to be compared to Bach’s,” but differ in kind: Bach’s can be objective, Chopin’s are “largely personal, subjective, and intimate” (Ch. VII).
• Chopin’s genius is at its most concentrated in small forms: within narrowly bounded forms the Preludes are, in their “aphoristic brevity, masterpieces of the first rank” (Kullak, quoted Ch. VII).
• Niecks is wrong to deny any unity: despite the evanescent moods there is “designedly a certain unity of feeling and contrasted tonalities, all being grouped in approved Bach-ian manner” (Ch. VII).
• The set’s greatness is proportion, not scale: most Preludes achieve “a just proportion of manner and matter, a true blending of voice and vision,” though in a few “the idea overbalances the form” (Ch. VII).
• No. 24 in D minor stands apart as impersonal and national rather than private: “not Chopin suffers, but his countrymen” (Ch. VII) — it belongs with the greater works, alongside the C minor and A minor Etudes and the F sharp minor Prelude.
• Chopin anticipates later composers: the harmonic heights of No. 8 prefigure Wagner’s Tristan, and the diminished-chord cadenza of op. 45 “forestalls … favorite effects of some of our more modern composers” (Niecks, quoted Ch. VII).
• Editorial intervention is legitimate only where it clarifies, not where it regularizes: Riemann’s rigid melodic pedantry “maims” Chopin’s theme, whereas Klindworth’s chromatic readings usually “sound better” (Ch. VII).

Arguments

Against the Valdemosa dating. Huneker builds a cumulative case rather than one proof. (1) Internal evidence shows most Preludes predate the Balearic trip. (2) Gutmann, Chopin’s pupil and nurse, told Niecks he had copied all of them before the departure with Sand. (3) Letters mention several Preludes being sent to Paris. (4) Niecks’ compromise — Majorca was for selecting, filing, polishing — reconciles Gutmann’s overclaim with the letter evidence, and Huneker calls it “a sensible solution.” (5) Sand’s own account is discredited by her general unreliability. Against this, Willeby names Nos. 4, 6, 9, 13, 20, 21 as Valdemosa works because their atmosphere is “morbid and azotic”; Huneker refuses the inference because febrility is a constant of Chopin’s style, not a datable symptom.

Against biographical mood-reading generally. Liszt reads a youthful vigor into the Preludes and a morbid irritability into the late works; Huneker replies that Liszt “erred on the sentimental side” and that Chopin the man of moods resists periodization. Kleczynski is enlisted on the same side: people have gone too far seeking Majorcan misanthropy, since even the most ennui-laden Prelude, No. 2, predates the trip (per Count Tarnowski), and Nos. 18, 21, 23 and 24 are energetic or gay.

For unity in the set. Niecks denies a new type on the ground that the Preludes are “too unlike each other in form and character.” Huneker’s counter is empirical rather than analytic: the contrasted tonalities are deliberately grouped in Bach’s manner, and playing the whole set at a sitting demonstrates the effect — as Arthur Friedheim did in concert “with excellent effect.”

On No. 6 versus No. 15. Kleczynski’s contention that the B minor prelude is a mere sketch of the idea elaborated in No. 15 is given color by the shared device: the never-ceasing dominant pedal, the “echo principle” in both. Huneker accepts the link while noting that No. 15’s C sharp minor middle section goes far beyond sketch — it is an oppressive dream (Niecks) whose dispelling by the returning D flat has “the smiling freshness of dear, familiar nature.”

On the raindrop programme. Sand supplies the drops-of-water reading; Kleczynski elaborates it into a full picture of terror at nature’s deathly aspect; Chopin himself protested against imitative harmony. Huneker’s verdict cuts between them: “The work needs no programme” — the beauty is architectural, “at once Greek and Gothic.”

Evidence

• Commercial record. Pleyel advanced 2,000 francs for the Preludes (500 up front, balance on delivery of the manuscript) in 1838, entitling him to say “These are my Preludes”; Chopin: “I sold the Preludes to Pleyel because he liked them” (Niecks).
• Dedications and dates. Op. 28 published 1839, Kessler on the German edition only. Op. 45 composed Nohant, August 1841, published December 1841; Chopin admitted in a letter he could not spell the dedicatee’s name.
• Witness testimony. Gutmann (pupil, nurse) claims to have copied all the Preludes before Majorca; letters contradict a total pre-Majorca completion; Count Tarnowski dates No. 2 well before the trip.
• Contemporary criticism. Schumann: sketches, “ruins, eagles’ feathers, all strangely intermingled,” with morbid and repellant traits — “Philistines, however, must keep away.” Moscheles, who had thought the music harsh and dilettantish in modulation, was reconciled by Chopin’s playing — “he glides lightly over the keys in a fairy-like way with his delicate fingers.” Liszt, Ehlert, Kleczynski, Niecks, Willeby, Karasowski and Rubinstein are all quoted; Rubinstein called the Preludes the pearls of Chopin’s works.
• Kullak’s pedagogical grouping (quoted in full): nocturne-style mood pictures with no technical hindrance — Nos. 4, 6, 7, 9, 15, 20; more difficult but not virtuoso — Nos. 17, 25 [sic], 11; suggested order of study — 1, 14, 10, 22, 23, 3, 18; very great bravura — 12, 8, 16, 24; difficulty of delicate piano and legato technique — 2, 5, 13, 19, 21. Huneker calls it “eminently a common sense grouping.”
• Piece-by-piece readings. No. 1 (C): impromptu-like, modern in its changeful modulation, written by a devout Bach student; Klindworth notates triplets, Kullak quintolets. No. 2 (A minor): asymmetric, ugly, snake-like, lycanthropic; Riemann’s metronome 50 to the half note; all editions lento alla breve. No. 3 (G): rain-like left-hand figure, Gallic esprit, a true salon piece; Klindworth’s Vivace at 72 preferred to Riemann’s 60. No. 4 (E minor): Niecks’ “little poem,” a single motif handled like a Rembrandt shadow, “For background Chopin has substituted his soul.” No. 5 (D): arabesque, dewy freshness, intricate harmony — evidence against the sickly-Chopin cliché. No. 6 (B minor): doleful, classical in repression, over-played. No. 7: a two-line silhouette of the mazurka in which “is compressed all Mazovia.” No. 8 (F sharp minor): the grand manner, elegiac rather than poignant, Wagner’s Tristan prefigured. No. 9 (E): gnomic, ethical, churchly, hints of Brahms and Beethoven. No. 10 (C sharp minor): Schumann’s “eagle wings” — an arpeggio study, too short for more than a vivid impression. No. 11 (B): vivacious, dolce, “another gleam of the Chopin sunshine.” No. 12 (G sharp minor): convulsed with woe but never losing intellectual grip; unwittingly imitated by Grieg’s Menuetto in the same key; four editions disagree on the bass octaves. No. 13 (F sharp): mental rest, majestic wheeling in the piu lento. No. 14 (E flat minor): sullen triplets recalling the B flat minor Sonata finale, but with the heat of conflict. No. 15 (D flat): nocturnal, slightly banal from repetition, but of unquestioned chastity and balance. No. 16 (B flat minor): the boldest of the set, scale figures boiling, “the darling of the virtuoso.” No. 17: not Mendelssohnian but Chopin to the core; the eleven booming A flats on the last page “are historical.” No. 18 (F minor): fiery recitatives, operatic declamation, the torso of a larger idea; Schumann’s Aufschwung possibly indebted. No. 19 (E flat): widely dispersed harmonies, June-like beauty, hard to interpret. No. 20 (C minor): thirteen bars containing “the sorrows of a nation,” a funeral-march sketch. No. 21 (B flat): superior to most of the nocturnes. No. 22 (G minor): bold dissonance, octave study for the left hand, companion to No. 18. No. 23 (F): an E flat in the bass of the penultimate bar leaves the whole floating enigmatically. No. 24 (D minor): cosmic Appassionata, three closing tones as “the final clangor of oppressed, almost overthrown, reason.” Op. 45 (C sharp minor): improvisata, Brahmsian coloring, “not music for the multitude.”
• Editorial cruxes catalogued. No. 7 bar 4 from the end (Klindworth’s G sharp for F sharp); No. 12 bars 11-12 from the end (Breitkopf E twice, Mikuli G sharp first, Klindworth G sharp second, Riemann and Kullak E); No. 16 bar 23 (Klindworth A natural and D natural against Kullak/Riemann B natural and E flat); No. 17 opening melody (Klindworth’s B flat for G); No. 21 bar 2 appoggiatura, and Riemann’s inserted E flat in bar 4; No. 23 bar 14 (Riemann’s G for B natural); No. 24 bars 5 and 23 (Kullak’s variants, which Huneker rejects in favor of Chopin’s text), plus cadenza note-values differing across all three editors.

Quotes

• “These are my Preludes.” (Ch. VII)
• “I sold the Preludes to Pleyel because he liked them.” (Ch. VII)
• “His genius was full of mysterious harmonies of nature.” (Ch. VII)
• “these are sketches, the beginning of studies, or, if you will, ruins, eagles’ feathers, all strangely intermingled.” (Ch. VII)
• “Philistines, however, must keep away.” (Ch. VII)
• “Chopin’s Preludes—the only preludes to be compared to Bach’s—are largely personal, subjective, and intimate.” (Ch. VII)
• “in this music he is a true lycanthrope.” (Ch. VII)
• “For background Chopin has substituted his soul.” (Ch. VII)
• “It precipitates the soul into frightful depression.” (Ch. VII)
• “Yet in its measures is compressed all Mazovia.” (Ch. VII)
• “The work needs no programme.” (Ch. VII)
• “The architecture is at once Greek and Gothic.” (Ch. VII)
• “No. 20 in C minor contains in its thirteen bars the sorrows of a nation.” (Ch. VII)
• “not Chopin suffers, but his countrymen.” (Ch. VII)
• “Much in miniature are these sculptured Preludes of the Polish poet.” (Ch. VII)

Tensions and links

• Legend versus documentation. The chapter’s whole first section is a contest between a beautiful story (Sand at Valdemosa) and dull paper evidence (letters, a copyist’s testimony, a publisher’s advance). Huneker sides with the paper but keeps retelling the story — the legend is too useful as a reading of No. 6 and No. 15 to discard entirely.
• Dating by style is circular. Willeby infers Valdemosa from morbid atmosphere; Huneker’s rebuttal (Chopin was always febrile) equally undercuts any attempt to date Chopin’s works by mood, including Liszt’s. But Huneker himself reads biography into the music constantly (“this fragile man’s veins”), so the tool he denies to others he keeps for himself.
• Sketch or masterpiece. Schumann, Willeby and Ehlert all call the Preludes sketches, embryonic, ruins; Kullak and Rubinstein call them masterpieces and pearls. Huneker wants both: cameos “carved with exceeding fineness,” yet a few where “the idea overbalances the form.”
• Unity versus miscellany. Niecks’ formal argument (no new type, too unlike each other) versus Huneker’s performative one (play them at a sitting, as Friedheim did). The disagreement is really about what counts as unity — shared form, or planned contrast of key and feeling.
• Programme music refused, then supplied. Chopin protested against imitative harmony; Sand and Kleczynski supply raindrops, monks and terror anyway; Huneker declares the programme unnecessary and then writes his own visual programmes for nearly every Prelude (eagles, avalanches, spider webs, Rembrandt interiors).
• Editors as adversaries. Klindworth is trusted for chromatic sense and playability, Kullak for tradition and pedagogy, Riemann distrusted for imposing rhythmic and melodic regularity. The recurring question is whether an editorial reading is logical or Chopin — “It is logical, but is it Chopin?”
• Links. Connects backward to the Etudes (Kullak places the Preludes on a par with op. 10 and op. 25; No. 24 grouped with the C minor and A minor Etudes) and forward to the Nocturnes (No. 21 and No. 15 belong in feeling to that form), the Mazurkas (No. 7), the Scherzi and the B flat minor Sonata (No. 14). Cross-composer links: Bach, Rembrandt, Wagner’s Tristan, Schumann’s Aufschwung, Grieg’s Menuetto in G sharp minor, Cornelius’ song “Ein Ton,” Brahms and Beethoven.

Open questions

• Which Preludes were genuinely composed at Valdemosa, if any? Huneker leaves the case at “may have written a few,” without resolving Gutmann’s total claim against the Paris letters.
• Kullak’s list includes a “No. 25” among the more difficult Preludes — is this an error for a different number, or does it count op. 45 as a twenty-fifth prelude?
• Is the ordering of op. 28 Chopin’s design or the accident of assembling a portfolio? Huneker asserts deliberate grouping of contrasted tonalities but offers only performance effect as proof.
• The chapter’s numbering slips: the mazurka-like piece and the F sharp minor prelude are both called “No. 7.” Which reading of the passage is intended — is the two-line mazurka No. 7 and the grand-manner piece No. 8?
• What exactly is the “Brahmsian coloring” of op. 45, and how can Brahms be a reference point for a work of 1841? Huneker asserts the resemblance twice without arguing it.
• If the Preludes’ unity is one of contrasted tonality, does excerpting them singly in recital (as with Nos. 6 and 15, “how meaninglessly”) destroy something essential, or merely something Huneker values?