What Is a Prelude in Music? 6 Examples of Iconic Preludes

A prelude (from the Latin praeludium) is a short piece of music that can take a wide array of forms. In some cases, a prelude is an introduction to a longer piece of music. In other cases, it is a standalone piece—often in the format of keyboard music. Preludes exist in vocal music, such as opera or oratorios. They can also serve as an overture to an evening's performance in musical theatre or as a preface to an orchestral tone poem.

Unlike other forms of Western music, preludes do not have a rigid compositional structure. While musical forms like a fugue, sonata, or rondo may abide by fairly strict compositional rules, a prelude can have any number of sections, motifs, and modulations.

• 1400s–1500s: The earliest known preludes come from the Renaissance era. The Ileborgh Tablature, a 1448 compilation of keyboard music, contains four organ preludes introducing other pieces.
• 1600s: During the Baroque era, preludes came into high fashion, particularly as introductions to fugues. In the seventeenth century, members of the renowned Couperin family of French composers published many volumes of preludes for keyboard music, notably harpsichord.
• 1700s: Eventually German composers took note of the prelude form and published many books of preludes. Johann Sebastian Bach composed dozens of preludes and fugues for his two-part compilation The Well-Tempered Clavier. These compositions, which cycle through every one of the major and minor keys, remain a touchstone for contrapuntal composition, Baroque music theory, and piano music in general.
• 1800s: The prelude tradition opened a new chapter in nineteenth-century Romantic music. Composers like Ludwig van Beethoven and Frédéric Chopin created longer preludes that took on an improvisatory character and experimented with form.
• 1900s: In the twentieth century, orchestral preludes came into fashion thanks to composers like Claude Debussy in France. Meanwhile, Russian composer Dimitri Shostakovich revisited J.S. Bach's tradition of preludes and fugues by creating his own volume inspired by The Well-Tempered Clavier.

Over many centuries, the prelude has enjoyed high status among classical compositions. Notable preludes in the classical music canon include:

1. 1. The Well-Tempered Clavier by J.S. Bach (1722 and 1744): This two-part volume of preludes and fugues cycles through all the major and minor keys, beginning with C major and C minor and moving up chromatically. Bach sought to show the possibilities of tuning early pianos with a technique called equal temperament, and he ended up creating some of the most enduring music of the entire Baroque period.
2. 2. 24 Preludes, Op. 28, by Frédéric Chopin (1839): Chopin composed 24 preludes, which cover every major and minor key. Chopin's preludes convey emotion, and the composer himself envisioned them as character pieces—which fits the mood of the Romantic era in which he composed.
3. 3. 24 Preludes, Op. 37, by Fernando Busoni (1881): Busoni was a late-Romantic-era admirer of Chopin, and his book of preludes showcases his formidable piano skills.
4. 4. Ten Preludes, Op. 23, by Sergei Rachmaninoff (1901 and 1903): Rachmaninoff, one of the last great composers of the Romantic era, published upwards of 26 preludes in his life, some standalone and some as larger volumes.
5. 5. Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune by Claude Debussy (1894): This Debussy prelude is for orchestra, and it closely resembles a tone poem—programmatic instrumental music that tells a story. Debussy's choice to call it a prelude (rather than a concerto) may owe to its short length; most performances clock in at roughly 10 minutes.
6. 6. 24 Preludes and Fugues by Dimitri Shostakovich (1952): Shostakovich released two volumes of preludes and fugues in every key as a tribute to his idol J.S. Bach. Shostakovich helped lead a reemergence of the formalism of Baroque composition after a long Romantic era in which formal structures were discarded in favor of emotional music. In many ways, Shostakovich attempted to bridge the two.

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