Seymour Bernstein teaches Chopin's Prelude in E minor

In this in-depth lesson, Bernstein not only demonstrates the physical mechanics necessary to realize your expressive intentions in this work, he reveals how the Prelude contains information crucial to your general development as a pianist and a person.

LESSON CONTENTS

• 0:00 Seymour has a surprise for you
• 1:34 Performance of Chopin E minor Prelude
• 4:16 Finding your own interpretive ideas
• 5:24 Chopin knew he was dying
• 6:33 Preliminary swing stroke
• 8:40 How to play two-note slurs
• 10:21 “All piano playing is a series of illusions”
• 12:05 Controlling repeated chords
• 14:58 ‘Alla breve’ does not mean ‘faster’
• 16:25 How not to play the Moonlight Sonata
• 18:44 Romantic hairpins are not what you think
• 21:16 How to play hairpins in a Brahms Intermezzo
• 22:40 More proof from Fanny Mendelssohn
• 24:36 Irrefutable evidence from Chopin’s G minor Ballade
• 26:36 “Rob Peter, but don’t pay Paul.”
• 28:35 Crescendo means ‘get softer’!
• 31:47 What Chopin learned from Bach
• 33:44 How to voice chords on the piano
• 38:08 How does a piano produce dynamics?
• 39:34 How not to bang out a crescendo
• 41:58 The most profound chord in the E minor Prelude
• 43:32 How practicing music translates to life