Prelude No. 12 in G‑Sharp Minor

When Rachmaninoff set about completing his suite of 24 preludes in 1910, he was following in the footsteps of several great composers: Johann Sebastian Bach had explored the complete cycle of keys, combining preludes with fugues in his Well-Tempered Clavier, a cornerstone of the piano repertoire. Chopin embarked on a similar journey in his Op. 28. It was Rachmaninoff's love of these works that inspired him to explore the genre. Among his most atmospheric pieces for piano is the Prelude in G-Sharp Minor. A favourite encore piece, it opens with Lisztian arpeggios in the right hand, falling light as snow across a wintry, distinctly Russian-sounding melody that sings in the left. A masterclass in articulation, the piece demands a lightness of touch in its glittering, harplike accompaniment figuration and an ability to bring out the yearning passion that is tightly coiled within the melody, without ever pushing its latent momentum too hard or too fast. About Rachmaninoff’s Preludes It was in this genre that Rachmaninoff first made his name, with the popular Lisztian Prelude in C-sharp minor , Op. 3, No. 2, of 1892. Nearly 10 years on, inspired by Chopin’s Preludes, he returned to the genre to produce his own G-Minor Prelude—another favourite in the Op. 23 set (1901-3). Shortly after writing his Third Piano Concerto in 1909, the composer returned to the genre again, this time to finish the 24. Though not initially conceived as a set of 24, Rachmaninoff does explore contrasts in tempos and moods between preludes, and the last, in the key of D-flat major, is enharmonically related to the C-sharp minor key of the first.