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Does one have to learn all 24 to perform them? I'd like to learn a chronological selection (6 or 7), but not the whole set yet. Would it be bad to perform this in a formal setting, as part of a larger program?

Most professionals play them all together, but there's no need for the rest of us to do so, even in a formal setting. Indeed, there has been debate on whether Chopin intended all of op.28 to be performed together, and whether they even work well that way. So do whatever you want.

-J

Horowitz didn't.....but of course, he sucked. So if you don't want to suck, you better learn them all.

No.

Good idea.

Not at all. I heard a program not long ago where Chopin preludes where interspersed with smaller preludes by other composers. It was quite effective.

Wrong thread !!!!

I had a teacher once (in high school) who programmed the entire set - and played them all beautifully. Certainly something I could never do myself - because a couple of them are just too freakin' difficult.

Complete sets of anything is a relatively recent phenomenon. In the 19th century, even movements of Beethoven sonatas were broken up and performed separately.

Right. And even so, it is still universally common to play popular miniatures outside of the complete cycle. You don't always have a block of 50 minutes available to you.

Sviatoslav Richter is the only great pianist I know of who never played them complete in concert, but he does play them in groups, following Chopin's key sequence - which makes sense for quite a few of the Préludes, because they are preludes to the ones that come next. Several of the preludes don't work when played in isolation, or as precursors to a different prelude than the order in the set.

It is often a good idea to play them in pairs, so they complement one another. For example, 10 and 11 together, or 4 and 5 together, or 20 and 21 together. (20+17 is an odder grouping that I'm also quite fond of.)

20-21 is a great pair. 21-22 wouldn't be bad either. 21 is actually probably the best major-key prelude in the whole set in my opinion.

As Chopin didn't say they had to be performed as a set, it's up to you. At any rate it is better that you perform a few well rather than the whole set and a couple in the set not so well.

In this century, and the one before, the common practice is/was to perform the preludes as a set. Some pianists didn't, most do now, and it is a good tradition, all 24 keys within say 40 minutes, and a full psychogram of the composer, what else does one want? I think it is a fall back to luckily lost manners to just make a nice pick of things to perform
: A movement of this, ANOTHER thingy of that and to conclude: THE bombshell of that, Chopin did just the right thing in keeping his preludes short: we can play through all 24 keys/pieces/moods and have a rollercoaster of an experience.

Argerich played op.28 19-24 when she won at Warsaw.

I have a vague recollection that Busoni began the tradition of performing these preludes as a set.

But do we want to experience that kind of rollercoaster? I don't think so.

If played at full concentrated emotional intensity, both audience and performer are going to be a mess before the half-way point. But if played at somewhat less intense intensities (which is the norm these days), what's the point?

About 20 minutes less Chopin.