Prelude in D major (Rachmaninoff)

The Prelude in D major, Op. 23 No. 4 is a 1903 composition by Sergei Rachmaninoff.[1][2] It is part of Rachmaninoff's Ten Preludes, Op. 23.

No. 2

Structure

The prelude is in ternary form. The theme of the main section is introduced in measure 3:


Measure 3

The theme is in the form of a period, composed of two symmetrical phrases, the consequent being a more embellished version of the antecedent, presenting a triplet descant in the treble voice above the main theme in the right-hand alto voice. The right-hand voices are offset against an eighth-note figure in the left-hand:


Measure 19

The middle section presents rhythmic changes and several modulations. Triplets appear in the accompaniment, and shorter phrasing is utilized:


Measures 35 and 36

The piece reaches its climax at measures 50–51, and immediately resolves back into the main section:


Measures 50 and 51

Here, the triplet flow returns to the left-hand bass line, while a high counterpoint is introduced in the main melody. Only the antecedent of the original phrase is recapitulated, lengthened by eight additional measures that provide closure.


Measures 53 and 54

Recordings
gollark: sbgcsetup
gollark: TerraFirmaCraft looks *extremely*.
gollark: My (E2E, lategame) ore acquirer and processor. It uses a bunch of sieves running on soul sand, gravel and dust to make ore pieces and gems and such, as well as a void ore miner (I resent EnvironmentalTech, but apparently you need the crystals from it), as well as a laser drill, as well as an ender chest from the lunar mining site. It uses Ender IO machines for smelting/some grinding because they're really, really fast, Mekanism 5x ore processing (which constantly ends up backlogged) for a few rarer things, and 4x ore processing (still horribly backlogged) for most of the rest.
gollark: What will it actually do?
gollark: <:SolarPanel:423059956422410240> <- Is this going to be a 1.3 feature, then?

References
  1. Norris, Geoffrey, Rachmaninoff, Schirmer Books, 1993 (pg. 170).
  2. Id.

Detailed 5-layer analysis (by Lance Bastian)

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