Peter Wolfe

Jazz Preludes

Similarly to Bach's cycle The Well-tempered Clavier or to Chopin's 24 Preludes, and similarly to his own collection published in 2019, the Wolf-temperiertes Klavier, Péter Wolf penned 24 piano pieces again. His Jazz Preludes set examples for improvisation and make use of the entire stylistic spectrum of jazz, ranging from the gospel (Anthem, No. 7) to blues (Windlass, No. 1), bebop (Crime, No. 11), Latin jazz (Tropical Night, No. 6), and, of course, the world of ballads (Nostalgia, No. 4 and Question Without Answer, No. 16). The individual movements are no mere style exercises or piano technique exercises but, like Debussy's preludes, they are expressive character pieces: musical images of a phenomenon, an emotion, a behavior pattern, a personal experience reflected by their titles.