S. Rachmaninov | Prelude in C-sharp minor, op. 3 n. 2 (1892)
 
It took just a few months to Rachmaninov to leave his mark in history after graduating from the Moscow Conservatory in 1892, when at 19-year-old he composed his prelude in C-sharp minor. Also known as “The Bells of Moscow” for its resemblance with the iconic Kremlin’s carillon, the prelude soon became immensely popular among pianists and public all over Europe and North America, such that the public would just shout “C-Sharp” after Rachmaninov’s performances for encore. The prelude is built on the typical ABA form with a coda. The first theme breaks the silence with a solemn 3-note fortissimo that soon modulates into an exposition of the theme in pianissimo. After a propulsive second theme built on a restless sequence of chromatic triplets, the first theme is recapitulated in quadruple sforzando, with so many notes at once that four staves are needed.