The word "prelude" comes from the Latin praeludo. It means "I enter." Prelude is an old musical genre that can easily be modified to meet the requirements of the times.
The Origin of Prelude
Prelude arose in the mid-fifteenth century. Initially, it was a small musical (usually instrumental) introduction to a larger composition. Experienced musicians often instead of pre-prepared preludes preferred to improvise.
Such an introduction made it possible for the performer to prove himself, to show his ingenuity and musicality. For several hundred years, the prelude has turned from such an optional improvisational fragment without a definite beginning and end to a small piece of music that has already prevented improvisation and impromptu. Such preludes in the eighteenth century opened suites and operas in France.
Johann Sebastian Bach was the first composer who brought to the prelude genre a certain musical independence, separation from major genres. He created a whole series of small pieces of music in which preludes and fugues were combined into stable pairs. A musical theme was laid in the fugue, corresponding to the canons, and in the prelude, the same theme was presented more freely. Fugue is a tough musical form in which a musical theme develops using polyphony or polyphony. In a narrower more familiar sense, it can be said that the canon of singing is a fugue, since the same theme is repeated in it with variations, echoing in different fragments of a musical work, and so on.
Bach's "well-tempered clavier" became a real encyclopedia of foreplay. In this work, all kinds of this musical play are presented - solemn, mournful, fast, slow, jerky and fused. In fact, most composers of a later time in their research relied on the work of Bach.
