Complete Preludes, Op. 3, 23, 32

Rachmaninoff greatly admired Chopin. He wrote 24 preludes, sentimentally because Chopin had written 24, but for a logical reason as well. He wanted, in 24 verses, to show the piano from every possible angle. Like those of Chopin, each of Rachmaninoff's preludes is built on a different key, but they should be played in the order of their publication. They were conceived this way emotionally. The celebrated Prelude in C-Sharp Minor was written 11 years before Op. 23, when the composer was 19. The Op. 23 preludes were composed two years after Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto, while the 13 preludes of Op. 32 were written one year after the Third Concerto. There is a decided difference in texture between the compositions of the two major periods. "You can hear this transition," remarked Weissenberg. "Rachmaninoff's writing became more complex, more contrapuntal; harmonically more interesting and more exciting. I do not think, however, that the melodic inspiration developed further from the earlier set [1903] to the later [1910] because Rachmaninoff was melodically gifted from the very beginning." - Program notes.