Frédéric Chopin suffered from poor health and disease (tuberculosis, primarily) for much of his brief life (he lived to be only 39 years old). During the latter part of 1838, Chopin fled the damp, cold winter of Paris for warmer weather in Valldemossa, Mallorca with his partner, George Sand, and her children. It was during this trip that Chopin worked on his collection of 24 Preludes and Fugues.
In her memoir, Sand wrote that one night, during a terrible rainstorm, she returned to the monastery from a shopping trip. Chopin was out of sorts and told her about a “dream” he had had while playing the piano (others have described it as a hallucination). In this vision, he saw himself drowned in a lake, with heavy raindrops falling on him in a consistent pattern. It seems likely that the prelude he played while having this vision was No. 15, with its repeating A-flat note, suggestive of steady rain.
Frederick Niecks, a German musical scholar, pointed out that the middle section of the prelude “rises before one’s mind the cloistered court of the monastery of Valldemossa, and a procession of monks chanting lugubrious prayers, and carrying in the dark hours of night their departed brother to his last resting-place.” The raindrop sound in the theme along with the chanting quality of the middle section are suggestive of Chopin’s experience at the monastery.
Prelude No. 15 is the longest of the 24 preludes Chopin composed. The piece opens and closes with a peaceful melody in D-flat major, that serenely floats along with arpeggio and scale-like movement, with a repeating A-flat note suggestive of gentle rain. The middle section darkens and moves to C-sharp minor. Frederick Niecks said, “This C♯ minor portion… affects one like an oppressive dream; the reentrance of the opening D♭ major, which dispels the dreadful nightmare, comes upon one with the smiling freshness of dear, familiar nature – only after these horrors of the imagination can its serene beauty be fully appreciated.”
The Raindrop Prelude is marked sostenuto, suggesting a slower, not hurried tempo. It is to be played legato, smoothly connected, with a light touch and the hand’s weight doing the work. The form of the piece is ternary with three sections (A-B-A1). This well-known prelude can be difficult to learn at first, but with sufficient practice, many intermediate players can enjoy playing it with success.