Three Preludes are short piano pieces by George Gershwin and were first performed by the composer at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York in 1926. Each prelude is a well known example of early 20th Century American classical music, as influenced by Jazz. Early listeners called the third Prelude “Spanish”, but modern ears may find this description puzzling. (This is analogous to the description of Mozart’s Rondo alla turca by his contemporaries as “Oriental”; in the present day, it sounds Viennese more than anything else.) After a brief and dramatic introduction, the main theme is revealed: two melodies that together form a question-and-answer pair. This pair is used throughout to provide harmonic structure, with the question harmonised using E-flat minor chords, while the answer is harmonised with E-flat major chords.
