Recoding Chopin 28.4

Recoding Chopin 28.4
Translation of the prelude op. 28 No. 4

Recoding Chopin 28.4 and Recoding Chopin 25.11 were commissioned as part of the concert "Le piano sans piano" (“Piano Without Piano”) at Arsenal, Cité Musicale-Metz (France). The proposal was to transcribe two pieces of Chopin of my choice for solo clarinet and string quartet.

The beauty of Chopin’s prelude in E minor op. 28 No. 4 lies in the bare and monotonous melody which undulates around a minor second and generates, by reverberation, a constant chromatic harmony. The clarinet must appeal to all the resources of its multiphonic sounds and split through their thousand prisms to evoke the memory of Chopin’s text, in time that is suspended, almost still.

Filippo Zapponi