PRELUDE (OF. prelude, Fr. prelude, from Lat. prwludere, to play before, from pro-, before + halm:, to play). In music, a short preface or introduction to a more extended movement or composition. or to a dramatic performance or church service. It is in the same key with the selection which it is to introduce, and to which it is intended as a preparation. For a long time the prelude constituted an essential portion of the older sonata and suites. In the seventeenth century Corelli in his Sonate da Camera intro duced the custom of beginning all such works with pretudio in slow time; hence the -introduc tion (q.v.) in our modern sonatas and sym phonies. The German composers developed this idea. In some of the suites of J. S. Bach the prelude is as important as any of the regular movements. When this master wrote the Well Tempered Clavichord lie prefaced each fugue with a prelude. Baell's ,,orinin preludes are master piece, notably the magnificent one in E flat introducing the Saint Ann's fugue. Mendelssohn
followed Bach in his six Preludes and Fugues for piano (op. 35). Chopin wrote a book of preludes which rank among the most beautiful of his shorter compositions, but they are entirely inde pendent compositions, complete in themselves. Richard Wagner, from the time of his writing Lohengrin, uses the word prelude (Vorspiel) instead of overture. He aimed to give in the orchestra introduction to his dramatic works either a complete synopsis of the drama or its fundamental idea. He has, indeed, done this also in his overtures to The Flying Dutchman and Tannhauser. Only in Lohenyrin does the prelude end with a complete cadence; in all the other works the prelude leads without a cadence directly into the first act. See FORM ; OVERTURE.