Sometimes when you hear a work for the very first time, and it turns out to be something greater you literally are struck with such awe that it almost feels like everything could be literally stopping dead except for the sounds rushing through your head. It may seem a little extreme, melodramatic and such but if the power of music was anything less, it wouldn't be as effective.

Rachmaninoff is often a composer I feel this way about. More so with his solo piano works, and especially the two collections of Preludes Op.23 and Op.32. I have posted many times on these two collections with my favorites, and as I continue to explore these works, the list of favorites will obviously continue.



Last night, I discovered another one of those pieces in a recording which features both complete sets of Preludes done by Boris Berezovsky. In addition to the ones I normally listen to, I decided to listen to the entire collection and stumbled upon the final one, the Prelude No.13 in D-flat Major, Op.32.


Lillya Zilberstein performs

In a previous post I mentioned how I thought the No.10 of the Op.32 collection was the most dramatic and now I realize I may have to at least change that response into believing that it may not be the most powerful out of the entire collection. The No.10 B minor prelude is a very compelling work but I think that in terms of complexity of what to do with all the potential sounds, the thirteenth presents a greater challenge.

To speak about emotional capabilities heralded within both is as subjective as asking the perfect chord besides tonic. Both preludes hint at a solid tone of sorrow but the thirteenth addresses this one in a much more illicit manner and ends much more heroically than the b minor prelude. However we all gauge musical attractiveness and emotion differently, and to tie this to a composer like Rachmaninoff could be classified as insanity.