Chopin biography raindrop prelude

The Prelude Op. 28, No. 15, by Frédéric Chopin is known as the "Raindrop" prelude. It is one of the 24 Chopin preludes.

Chopin prelude f minor

This is the longest of the preludes. It lasts between five and seven minutes. The prelude is famous for its repeating A-flat. This note appears throughout the piece.

Chopin prelude 16

It sounds like raindrops to many listeners.^[1] It is known for it's repetitive raindrop motif.

Composition

[change | change source]

Some of the Preludes were written during Chopin and George Sand's stay at a monastery in Valldemossa, Majorca in 1838.

^[2] In her Histoire de ma vie, Sand told how one evening she and her son Maurice, returning from Palma, Majorca, in a terrible rainstorm, found a frantic Chopin who cried, "Ah! I knew well that you were dead." While playing his piano he had a dream:

"He saw himself drowned in a lake.

Heavy drops of icy water fell in a regular rhythm on his breast, and when I made him listen to the sound of the drops of w