Prelude (Cmin - Largo) - Chopin, Op. 28, no. 20

Download/listen here.

Again, a sad and foreboding Chopin work. To me, this piece is basically a funeral march. It starts out loud and broad and then slowly fades, finally culminating in that last Cmin chord. I like the sense of tragedy that hangs over the whole thing. It was the first Chopin prelude I ever learned, and it's still a bit of a finger twister in places. I actually got in trouble playing this in a competition back in Houston, as it didn't meet the minimum number of measures, due to the 2nd half repeat. (Interestingly, the repeat isn't actually in the ur-text I play from today, but was in the cheap copy I had back then. I claim I was therefore unjustly accused.)