Raindrop Prelude
Sand did not say which prelude Chopin played for her at that time. Most music critics think it was no. 15, because of the repeating A flat, with its suggestion of the "gentle patter" of rain. Peter Dayan points out that Sand accepted Chopin's protests that the prelude was not an imitation of the sound of raindrops, but a translation of nature's harmonies within Chopin's "génie". Frederick Niecks says that the prelude "rises before one's mind the cloistered court of the monastery of Valdemosa, and a procession of monks chanting lugubrious prayers, and carrying in the dark hours of night their departed brother to his last resting-place.