Preludes.

Jan Lisiecki. Preludes. 2025. Deutsche Grammophon 4866018. CD, LP, and MP3 download, 36 tracks (01:19). deutschegrammophon.com. CD €18.99, LP €38.99, MP3 $15

Canadian pianist Jan Lisiecki, associated with Chopin since his rapid rise to fame in his early teens, released an album of piano preludes in March, 2025, built around Chopin’s set of 24 (Op. 28). As the centerpiece of the album, and being performed by a Chopinist such as Lisiecki, these pieces are, predictably, played excellently.

However, there is nothing predictable about the track list of the album, which features the music of five composers before, or as a “prelude” to, Chopin’s set. Preludeception! One of Chopin’s unpublished works, a short album leaf of a prelude written for a friend, starts the album off with a breezy feeling, easing the listener in while announcing that the album will go in some unusual directions. Over the next eleven tracks, Lisiecki interweaves preludes of Bach (without their accompanying fugues), Rachmaninoff, Messiaen, Górecki, and one more Chopin singleton (the ethereal Op. 45 Prelude in C-sharp Minor). The effect of Lisiecki’s intentional track ordering is to create associations between these rather disparate composers’ music, such as a brilliant moment when the bombastic second selection of Górecki’s preludes transitions perfectly into the energy of Bach’s C Minor prelude from the first book of the Well-Tempered Clavier.

Lisiecki brings a flexible approach, from his remarkably dry and almost groovy Bach C Major prelude, to his colorful voicing in the Messiaen selections, to all-out romantic passion in the three crowd-pleasers of Rachmaninoff preludes. With engineer Stephan Flock, Lisiecki opted for a dry, studio sound for the recording that flatters selections like his blistering, crystal-clear Op. 28, No. 3, and the highly agitated Górecki pair. In theory, this album would make for an excellent live program, showing that even piano preludes can be meaningful and meaty. However, the album is undoubtedly streaming gold, with its conceptual theme making for shorter, easily playlist-able tracks that tend to inhabit a single musical texture. Chopin is also a huge winner for such playlists, and is of course well-represented in the album, making the record a smart business move as well as a statement of Lisiecki’s artistry and programming prowess.