Prelude No 15 Revision Gcse

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Prelude No. 15 in Db Major - F Chopin Fredric Chopin was born in Poland in 1810 which influenced his music to use polish folk tunes and dance rhythms, he died in Paris in 1849. He did more than composing by performing and teaching music, he also composed a lot of piano music and had a reputation as a ‘tragic’ romantic composer, because he was ill a lot and died young. It is often referred to as the ‘raindrop’ prelude because of the repeated quavers, the pedal note, and the falling melodic phrases. This piece comes from a set of 24 preludes that Chopin composed, one in each of the 12 major and 12 minor keys, This Prelude was written in 1839 USE OF THE PIANO Throughout most of the prelude, Chopin uses the middle to the lower ranges of the piano, with only occasional phrases played with the higher range of keys. The instrument’s wide dynamic range has been taken advantaged of throughout the piece. Many crescendos and diminuendos are used, creating extreme dynamic contrasts. DYNAMICS AND STRUCTURE A wide range of dynamics ranging from pp to ff is used throughout the piece, though there are no sudden contrasts in dynamics. Chopin uses many crescendos and diminuendos. Section A is quieter than Section B, as the second section builds up to a climax with ff twice. The prelude is written in ternary form, with a structure of ABA. Section A is written in the D♭ major, while the contrasting section is written in C♯ minor. Overall, the second section is rather contrasting from the first section, as it has a different key for the music to build up to a couple of climaxes. PP- pianissimo which means very soft and FF- fortissimo which means very loud MELODY AND RHYTHM The melody is mostly lyrical and is played on the right hand, developed with ornaments. However, the melody moves to the left hand in section B, and plays a narrower range with notes lasting for a
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