Alexander Scriabin's Prelude in E minor, Op. 11, No. 4, composed in Moscow in 1888, was the first of the 24 preludes, Op. 11 written by Scriabin. Intended originally as a ballade, the piece was reworked to its present form and entitled Prelude. Despite the fact that both hands have beautiful melodies indicated with tenutos in bars 1–3–9–11, and the alto voice in the 16, the one for the left hand seems to take the credit as the most beautiful between the two. Tenths arpeggiated in bars 20–23 lead to the top note of the chord to fall on the beat.
This composition's structural form is A (bars 1–8), A repeated (9–14), bridge (15–19), and coda (20–24), being that the second phrase repeates the first a fourth lower. It is 24 bars long with a Lento tempo marking, and it takes about two minutes to be played.