Symbols and Imagination

On the first picture we see a pair of lovers standing under a lakeside palm. The woman, in a flowing dress, seems to be dancing. The moored gondola lends a romantic and mysterious aura to the scene, evocative of Venice. Have the couple just arrived, or are they about to float off?

Reflected in the gently rippling surface of the water is a light from the opposite shore. On the peak of one of the hills, we see a circle of tall coniferous trees. 

Chopin’s first prelude is a buoyant short preface to the cycle. It gives a sense of lightness and airiness. A careful listener may discern an impression of lights flickering on water or a gondola bobbing gently on the waves of a lake. The Prelude in C major captures the magic of a fleeting moment. 

The pale figures emerging from the black on the illustration to the second prelude are captured in terrified lament, attempting to block their ears. Yet the expression on their faces leaves us with no illusions – it is all to no avail. 

The dramatic reaction to the tolling of bells clearly suggests that there is no escape from that sound. The bells are certainly announcing something very bad – perhaps someone’s death.

An incessantly oscillating musical motif in the low registers of the piano imitates the tolling of bells. The simple melody that unfolds against that motif and the highly chromaticised harmony sound desperate, even terrifying. Both Spies’s picture and the sounds of the A minor Prelude are in dark, gloomy hues. No one escapes from implacable fate.

In a snow-covered forest clearing we find two young figures: a kneeling boy extends his arms towards the girl seated in front of him, who is covered with just a blanket. The boy almost looks as if he were casting a spell on the girl or transmitting some mysterious energy to her through his hands. 

This is certainly positive energy, as becomes clear when we listen to the third prelude. It is a cheerful melody against a lively, restless accompaniment in G major, considered to be a bright and slightly humorous key. So we are witness to a wintry, but happy ritual, the symbol of which may be the snow – that white magic. 

On the depiction of the seventh prelude we see three young ladies in flowing white dresses dancing barefoot on the grass. They may be interpreted as the three Graces (Charites) – Greek goddesses of charm, beauty and joy.

The mythological picture is completed by the figure of the deity Pan, seated on a plinth and playing to the Graces on his flute. The artist clearly wished to portray an idyll of carefree simplicity and dance, expressing harmony between humans and nature. 

All of these features are displayed by Chopin’s seventh prelude, a short, charming miniature in the form of a dance – a mazurka. Its elegance, simplicity and grace ideally convey the mood of Spies’s picture. Classical moderation, symmetry, balance and perfection. 

A group of ancient armed warriors stand in closed ranks. In front of them, distinguished by the whiteness of his robes, stands a priest raising his hands up to the light. Could this be a prayer for success in battle? Or perhaps a tribute of thanksgiving to the gods after a battle already won?

The chant-like character of the music of the E major Prelude, expressed through chord stacks, conveys the august majesty of the picture. The music is exalted, hymnic, monumental. We are certainly dealing here with an important religious ceremony. 

Spies illustrated the twelfth prelude with a fencing duel. The dark, slender figures of the duellers are dynamic; despite the static nature of the picture, one senses intense movement. The setting is a cloudless, starry night – the rivals no doubt agreed to duel at a given time to resolve some conflict. 

The contrasting dynamics and articulation employed by Chopin can be heard from the opening bars of the twelfth prelude. This dualism, the inner struggle between textures, is full of temperament and at times even aggressive. The compulsive and insistent force of the two clashing musical elements ends in a sharp, definitive way. Someone has won, and someone has lost. 
 

The illustration of the twentieth prelude leaves us in no doubt – someone has died. The funeral cortège is led by warriors blowing trumpets, followed by lamenting figures bearing the defunct’s coffin, which resembles an Egyptian sarcophagus. The mourners’ grief is overwhelming – one of the women faints. Is the dead man one of the warriors, or perhaps the priest who recently conducted the thanksgiving ceremony? 

The sounds of this prelude turn into a funeral march. The chorale chords, which were previously a proud symbol of triumph, now determine the mourners’ measured pace.

In a garden bower, by an ivy-covered pergola, we witness an intimate lyrical scene. Two lovers embrace with a kiss. Is this the couple that were walking the streets of Paris a moment ago? Or perhaps the woman and the man from the lakeside scene that illustrated the first prelude?

The penultimate prelude in Chopin’s cycle is numbered among the idyllic group. The cheerful mood, simple melody and short duration help to forge an ephemeral, oneiric impression. The dream is short-lived, but filled with sweetness and charm. The repeated melodic figures in the piano’s high registers evoke the delicate stream from Spies’s illustration. 

The last scene in the cycle is perhaps the most dramatic of all: we observe a battlefield on which horrific events are taking place. Naked warriors armed with swords are fighting each other, striving to climb to the top of a hill. 

Yet besides the two clashing groups killing each other in cold blood, there appears to be someone else in the arena of battle. It is a Force Majeure that hurls lightning bolts at the rebellious people, punishing them for their fratricidal battle. The fury of the gods is more powerful than human evil. There are no victors in this battle. 

Prelude No. 24 stands apart: according to oral tradition, Chopin composed it, like the famous ‘Revolutionary’ Etude Op. 10 No. 12, under the sway of the shocking events connected to the defeat of the November Uprising in Poland. Hence Spies’s vision of battle could have been inspired by those assumptions. The work is in D minor, which the Romantics regarded as the key of death. It is full of drama, menace and revolt. The work’s emotional charge is like nothing else that the composer wrote. 

The slowly closing curtain obscures the vision of a battle lost, presaging the closure of the cycle of images and sounds to which we have been witness. It is a tragic finale to the tale – both Spies’s and Chopin’s.