Prelude Op. 28 No. 1 in C major

Frédéric Chopin · Level 5 (Advanced) · Romantic · Piano

The first of the 24 Preludes (1839), a tribute to the first prelude of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier: a single agitated breath of thirty-four bars, a syncopated melody carried by arpeggios shared between the hands. C major, 2/8, 34 bars (about one minute), complete score.

▶ Play this piece with the interactive score

How to practise it

• Listen first: the site plays it while the score scrolls.
• Wait mode: the score waits for you at every note, at your own pace.
• Tempo challenge: play in time, with a score and a map of the bars you got right.
• Each bar is the same gesture: the left hand launches the arpeggio and the right hand finishes it, singing the note under the thumb or the 5th finger. Practise slowly in Wait mode to share the notes correctly between the hands, then speed up without stiffness. One hand sometimes plays two voices: hold the long notes for their full value and let the main line sing louder than the accompaniment. Triplets and other tuplets must be perfectly even: count them aloud with the metronome. The left hand makes wide leaps: look at the landing note in advance and move early, without rushing the rhythm.

More pieces by Frédéric Chopin

• Prelude Op. 28 No. 9 in E major
• Prelude Op. 28 No. 4 in E minor
• Prelude Op. 28 No. 6 in B minor
• Prelude Op. 28 No. 20 in C minor
• Mazurka in G-sharp minor Op. 33 No. 1
• Prelude Op. 28 No. 10 in C-sharp minor
• Prelude Op. 28 No. 11 in B major
• Prelude Op. 28 No. 14 in E-flat minor

Source : PDMX / MuseScore · CC0 1.0