Yet I fancy that
Kullak has tradition on his side.
The seventeenth prelude Niecks finds Mendelssohn-ian. I do not.
It is suave, sweet, well developed, yet Chopin to the core, and
its harmonic life surprisingly rich and novel. The mood is one of
tranquillity. The soul loses itself in early autumnal revery
while there is yet splendor on earth and in the skies. Full of
tonal contrasts, this highly finished composition is grateful to
the touch. The eleven booming A flats on the last page are
historical. Klindworth uses a B flat instead of a G at the
beginning of the melody. It is logical, but is it Chopin?
The fiery recitatives of No. 18 in F minor are a glimpse of
Chopin, muscular and not hectic. In these editions you will find
three different groupings of the cadenzas. It is Riemann's
opportunity for pedagogic editing, and he does not miss it. In
the first long breathed group of twenty-two sixteenth notes he
phrases as shown on the following page.
It may be noticed that Riemann even changes the arrangement of
the bars. This prelude is dramatic almost to an operatic degree.
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