Henry James, an old
admirer of Madame Sand, admits her utter unreliability, and so we
may look upon her evidence as romantic but by no means
infallible. The case now stands: Chopin may have written a few of
the Preludes at Majorca, filed them, finished them, but the
majority of them were in his portfolio in 1837 and 1838. Op. 45,
a separate Prelude in C sharp minor, was published in December,
1841. It was composed at Nohant in August of that year. It is
dedicated to Mme. la Princesse Elizabeth Czernicheff, whose name,
as Chopin confesses in a letter, he knows not how to spell.
II
Theodore Kullak is curt and pedagogic in his preface to the
Preludes. He writes:
Chopin's genius nowhere reveals itself more charmingly than
within narrowly bounded musical forms. The Preludes are, in
their aphoristic brevity, masterpieces of the first rank. Some
of them appear like briefly sketched mood pictures related to
the nocturne style, and offer no technical hindrance even to
the less advanced player. I mean Nos. 4, 6, 7, 9, 15 and 20.
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