Today’s piece isn’t necessarily scary, but it is dark, deep, and heavy. I don’t associate it with Halloween, but I do remember an old Halloween cartoon in which a crazy old man played it on the piano in his haunted house.

There’s a tradition in keyboard composition to write a set of pieces in all 24 keys – that is, all 12 pitches of the chromatic scale (A, A#, B, C, C#, etc), in both major and minor tonalities. The idea to write this sort of musical collection can be traced to composer Vincenzo Galilei (who, incidentally, was the father of Galileo … lest you think musicians are dumb performing monkeys.) However, the first successful set of compositions in all 24 keys is without a doubt Johann Sebastian Bach‘s Well Tempered Clavier. The Well Tempered Clavier has since become one of those magical works which is all things to all people. It is used as a teaching tool for children and adults, pianists, composers, and more; and yet, you’ll hear selections from it on many piano concerts, and regularly see performances of all 24 pieces (memorized, usually.) Since its completion, all the great pianists have played it, and most composers refer to it as one of their inspirations.

Sergei Rachmaninoff would have known this work, as well as Chopin‘s and probably Scriabin‘s sets of 24 preludes. Being one of the greatest composers for piano in the early twentieth century, it would be wrong if he didn’t contribute his own exceedingly difficult set of pieces in every key. This Prelude in C# minor is practically a right of passage for young pianists, since it calls for a number of skills that are necessary as they graduate to more advanced literature. There are large chords, big jumps, and the middle section requires finger dexterity. And it has the added benefit of being not too hard, but sounding hard – making it good for impressing friends at parties.

This video contains a performance by Rachmaninoff himself!