The Preludes were published in 1839, yet there is internal
evidence which proves that most of them had been composed before
the trip to the Balearic Islands. This will upset the very pretty
legend of music making at the monastery of Valdemosa. Have we not
all read with sweet credulity the eloquent pages in George Sand
in which the storm is described that overtook the novelist and
her son Maurice? After terrible trials, dangers and delays, they
reached their home and found Chopin at the piano. Uttering a cry,
he arose and stared at the pair. "Ah! I knew well that you were
dead." It was the sixth prelude, the one in B minor, that he
played, and dreaming, as Sand writes, that "he saw himself
drowned in a lake; heavy, ice cold drops of water fell at regular
intervals upon his breast; and when I called his attention to
those drops of water which were actually falling upon the roof,
he denied having heard them. He was even vexed at what I
translated by the term, imitative harmony. He protested with all
his might, and he was right, against the puerility of these
imitations for the ear.
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