Prelude

prelude (prā`ld), musical composition of no universal style, usually for the keyboard. It was originally used to precede a ceremony and later a second, often larger piece. Early preludes represent the first example of idiomatic keyboard music. During the baroque period the prelude formed the first movement of suites and fugues. The most widely known preludes, those written for the piano by Frédéric Chopin, Claude Debussy and Aleksandr Scriabin, are independent works with no introductory function.

---

prelude

Musical composition, usually brief, generally played as an introduction to another piece. The prelude originated as short pieces that were improvised by an organist to establish the key of a following piece or to fill brief interludes in a church service. Their improvisatory origins were often reflected in rhythmic freedom and virtuosic runs. A section in this style would often lead to a closing fugal section; in time this turned into a separate movement, and preludes came to be paired with fugues. In the 17th century, preludes began to be frequently written for lute or harpsichord. In later years the term came to be used for short piano pieces, often in sets, by composers such as Frédéric Chopin, Aleksandr Scriabin, and Claude Debussy.

---

prelude

a. a piece of music that precedes a fugue, or forms the first movement of a suite, or an introduction to an act in an opera, etc.

b. (esp for piano) a self-contained piece of music

---

Prelude 

an instrumental musical piece, usually a solo. Originally a prelude was a short introduction to any piece and was played by a lute, a stringed-keyboard instrument, or an organ. Especially in its early form, it is characterized by an improvisational style, free development, figurate treatment of the material, and the application from beginning to end of a single manner of execution, which makes it close to the genre of the étude. Preludes have often been designated by other names, including a praeambula, intrada, recercari, and fantasia.

In the 18th century composers wrote preludes as independent pieces, chiefly for stringed-keyboard instruments. At the same time, above all in the work of J. S. Bach, the prelude was combined with the fugue, becoming a standard short cyclic form. Bach also established the large cyclic form that combines preludes and fugues and embraces all the major and minor keys, for example, the first and second volumes of the Well-Tempered Clavier. Similar forms were created later, for example, Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes and Fugues for piano. In addition, a cyclic form consisting only of preludes, also in all keys, was developed by such composers as F. Chopin, A. N. Scriabin, C. Debussy, and D. B. Kabalevskii.