Frederic Chopin - 전주곡[ 24 Preludes in Op.28]

 

쇼팽의 전주곡집 전 24곡이

인기를 누리고 있습니다. 피아니스트 조성진의 2015년 쇼팽 콩쿠르 우승 실황앨범에 이 곡이 실렸고,

임동혁이 연주한 이 작품 앨범도 영국 음악전문지 ‘그라머폰’이 지난해 11월 ‘편집자의 선택(Editor’s Choice)’에 선정하면서 음악 팬들의 이목을 집중시켰습니다.

전 24곡 중 가장 유명한 곡은 ‘빗방울’이라는 제목으로 알려진 15번이죠.

그런데 이 곡에는 다른 제목도 있습니다. ‘그러나 여기 죽음이 있다. 그늘 속에’라는 제목입니다. 

쇼팽이 이 작품집을 작곡할 때는 24곡 각각에 제목이 없었습니다. 그런데 19세기 말 음악평론가 한스 폰 뷜로가, 이어 20세기 피아노 대가이자 이 곡집을 처음 음반으로 녹음한 알프레드 코르토가 각각 나름대로 24곡에 제목을 부가했습니다. 두 사람의 제목들을 비교해보면 소소한 재미를 느낄 수 있습니다. 

 

뷜로가 붙인 제목을 후세의 코르토가 의식했는지는 확실하지 않지만, 먼저 비슷한 느낌을 주는 제목들이 있습니다. 20번 ‘장송행진곡’(뷜로) ‘장례’(코르토)같은 경우입니다.

같지는 않지만 비슷한 감상을 제목으로 붙인 곡들도 있습니다. 9번에 대한

뷜로의 제목은 ‘환상’, 코르토의 제목은 ‘예언의 목소리’입니다.

22번은 각각 ‘참을 수 없음’과 ‘반항’

23번

은

‘유람선’ ‘놀이를 하는 바다의 요정들’입니다. 

 

뷜로가 짧은 표현들을 사용한 데 비해 코르토가 붙인 제목은 긴 것이 많습니다. 격렬한 8번의 경우

뷜로는 ‘절망’, 코르토는 ‘눈이 내리고 바람이 불고 폭풍이 친다, 그러나 슬픈 내 마음속 폭풍우가 가장 참기 힘들다’로 표현했습니다.

 

서로 상반된 제목들도 눈길을 끕니다. 5번의 경우

뷜로는 ‘불확실’, 코르토는 ‘노래로 가득한 나무’로 표현했습니다. 뷜로는 선율이 불안한 느낌을 주는 점을, 코르토는 화려한 오른손 음형을 강조한 것입니다.

 

[글 출처: 동아일보 -유윤종 기자/ 음원- 유튜브]

 

Chopin's 24 Preludes, Op. 28, are a set of short pieces for the piano, one in each of the twenty-four keys, originally published in 1839.

Chopin wrote them between 1835 and 1839, partly at Valldemossa, Majorca, where he spent the winter of 1838--39 and where he had fled with George Sand and her children to escape the damp Paris weather. In Majorca, Chopin had a copy of Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier, and as in each of Bach's two sets of preludes and fugues, his Op. 28 set comprises a complete cycle of the major and minor keys, albeit with a different ordering.

The autograph manuscript, which Chopin carefully prepared for publication, carries a dedication to the German pianist and composer Joseph Christoph Kessler. The French edition was dedicated to the piano-maker and publisher Camille Pleyel, who had commissioned the work for 2,000 francs (equivalent to nearly $30,000 in present day). The German edition was dedicated to Kessler, who ten years earlier had dedicated his own set of 24 Preludes, Op. 31, to Chopin.

Whereas the term "prelude" had hitherto been used to describe an introductory piece, Chopin's pieces stand as self-contained units, each conveying a specific idea or emotion. He thus imparted new meaning to a genre title which at the time was often associated with improvisatory "preluding". In publishing the 24 preludes together as a single opus, comprising miniatures that could either be used to introduce other music or as self-standing works, Chopin challenged contemporary attitudes regarding the worth of small musical forms.

Whereas Bach had arranged his collection of 48 preludes and fugues according to keys separated by rising semitones, Chopin chosen key sequence is a circle of fifths, with each major key being followed by its relative minor, and so on (i.e. C major, A minor, G major, etc). Since this sequence of related keys is much closer to common harmonic practice it is thought that Chopin might have conceived the cycle as a single performance entity for continuous recital. An opposing view is that the set was never intended for continuous performance, and that the individual preludes were indeed conceived as possible introductions for other works.

Chopin himself never played more than four of the preludes at any single public performance. Nowadays, the complete set of Op. 28 preludes has become repertory fare, and many concert pianists have recorded the entire set, beginning with Alfred Cortot in 1926.
As with his other works, Chopin did not himself attach names or descriptions to any of the Op. 28 preludes, in contrast to many of Schumann's and Liszt's pieces.

Chopin's Op. 28 preludes have been compared to Johann Sebastian Bach's preludes in The Well-Tempered Clavier. However, each of Bach's preludes leads to a fugue in the same key, and Bach's pieces are arranged, in each of the work's two volumes, in ascending chromatic order (with major preceding parallel minor), while Chopin's are arranged in a circle of fifths (with major preceding relative minor). Chopin is known to have studied Bach's music, although he is not known to have performed it in public.

Harold C. Schonberg, in The Great Pianists, writes: "It also is hard to escape the notion that Chopin was very familiar with Hummel's now-forgotten Op. 67, composed in 1815 -- a set of twenty-four preludes in all major and minor keys, starting with C major." As Schonberg says: "the openings of the Hummel A minor and Chopin E minor concertos are too close to be coincidental." The dedicatee of Chopin's set, Joseph Christoph Kessler, also used the circle of fifths in his 24 Études, Op. 20, which were dedicated to Hummel.