C sharp minor

rachmaninoff's c sharp minor prelude (i highly recommend listening along) is one of my favorite pieces to play¹. because beyond fulfilling that urge that all piano players have to smash the keys every once in a while, it is also a piece that transforms depending on the mood of the player, which means it can be extraordinarily sad one phrase and extraordinarily angry the next.

it starts like an alarm — 3 octaves played at fortissimo is enough to wake up any audience member dozing off in the concert hall. by the second set of chords, the tone is set for the remainder of the movement. is it mournful? enraged? calm and collected, or anxious and fidgety?

supposedly, rachmaninoff had a nightmare where he was at a friend's funeral, hence the first part with rich, sombre chords, and as he walks down the aisle towards the coffin his anxiety builds and becomes agitated until — he opens the coffin — and he finds himself lying dead inside!

when he awoke from his nightmare he immediately tried to capture the funeral song that was playing in his dream, and it became this prelude.

i’m not a loud person. i am also not an angry person. i feel these things, of course — i imagine myself yelling at someone for all the things they did to piss me off, all the time.

i can see myself doing it, but as soon as i pull out of my head, i find that, in reality, i don't know how to be loud, or angry, and i lose my words.

it could be a roommate i just can't stand. maybe it's an ex who, to me, is dead, but somehow they didn't get the memo. or maybe it's my mom, who's one-ear-in and one-ear-out.

how do you yell at someone if they can't hear you?

rach’s own interpretation has a rather calm start in stark contrast with more modern interpretations. it feels peaceful, final, mournful.

as he starts “walking down the aisle”, almost immediately one can sense that something is wrong. the rhythm in the left and right hand misalign to build anxiety exponentially (in the e^x sense, not just the English word for “very quickly”), and altogether the notes sound like they are hyperventilating and falling down the stairs at the same time. then in one long, breathless crescendo, all of the pent-up frustrations, grudges, rage, and hate collapse on top of each other² and — DUUNNNN — rach shortens the lifespan of the c minor chord keys fully by half.

i genuinely think that, were he given the choice, rach would've used actual hammers in the piano.

my definitive guide on how to master the c# minor prelude

i breathe. maybe that's obvious. but you breathe too, and now you’re aware of it. and that’s basically me whenever confrontation comes to mind.

suddenly it becomes imperative that i devote brain resources to voluntary respiration instead of articulating what i wanted to say.

i have the words: i could write them down right now. but as soon as the situation which i've been playing in my head forwards and back starts playing out in real life, the words and emotions realize that there’s no path from the brain to the mouth, and i become mute³.

everyone is probably familiar with the feeling of being tongue-strapped in an argument and realizing the perfect thing to say minutes after. i think (?) this is why, or at least part of it. you're watching their face and their tone of voice and their body language etc etc, and the conscious among us do all that to ourselves two-fold, so there is no space in your brain for any of the thinking.

of course then the inspiration comes after the fact. of course you'll never get a chance to say the right thing, correct yourself perhaps. of course, you've said it once, they will not hear you again, and you're crazy for still thinking about it.

rach's finale repeats the chords from the beginning, but with double the notes and at double the volume⁴. rach had enormous hands which could cleanly span a 13th, or from a C to the G an octave higher. his hands were at least as big as shaq o'neal's, if not bigger (this is a hilarious video illustrating the concept).

sfffffff -or- "slam your hand into the piano as hard as you physically can while still hitting most of the notes"

after approximately 70 seconds of abusing the piano, it ends as abruptly as it had started.

all the rage dissipated, serenity is restored, the terror and tension fades into nothing (this is where he woke up, presumably).

But that, to me, is perhaps the scariest form of anger: Calm, exponential brewing until it blows up like a volcano, and then dies away as quickly as it had come.

whenever i play this piece, however, i always get the feeling that the resolution is not a result of satisfaction, but one of powerlessness. who here can change the past? or skip to the morning-after?

so the conclusion is an resignation. the moment when you realize that this song will never be heard by anyone except yourself. that this, too, is futile.