Opus 23, No. 5, or as I will refer to it, the Prelude in G Minor, is unique compared to No. 3 and No. 4, as it is a "Prelude" rather than a "Moment Musicaux". As moment musicaux focus on one main theme, they tend to have mostly uniform technique and tempos throughout. However, preludes less strict, and usually contain multiple sections which, unlike the "sections" in No. 3, express very different ideas with drastically different technique. While No. 3 was mostly uniform, with a couple of different types of similar techniques used to form the idea of a funeral march, and No. 4 had many similarities to the style present in Chopin's Etudes, each of those pieces had only one theme. Meanwhile the Prelude in G minor has two main themes, which I broke apart and learned separately.

• The first section involves many g-minor chords, setting the "tonic", or core chord which the rest of the piece will revolve around and conclude on. There is also a fairly large amount of hand movement in the first section, because many of the chords are over an octave apart, and thus one has to "jump" between chords.

• The second theme is a long series of arpeggios in the left hand accompanying repeating chains of mostly connected right-hand chords. At the start of this theme on around page 3, the piece becomes much quieter, as the second theme is a sort of "b-section", which provides contrast to the loud and boisterous first theme.

• After the second theme finishes, the first theme repeats and finished the piece, although there is a bit of a variation in how some of the chords connect to each other, and in general, the piece is made a bit more complicated (and grand).

The "jumping" pattern mentioned above which occurs in the first section is not exactly challenging in terms of notes, as basically all of the notes are involved in the aforementioned g-minor chords, and thus repeat extremely often. However, moving both hands rapidly and accurately while lifting them off the keys fully and moving them over an octave can be very tough, just because it is rare to play pieces which demand "jumping" chords. Rachmaninoff is known for his use of chords in this manner, and the G Minor Prelude is mainly famous because of these jumping chords.

While the first section has easy notes but complex technique, the second section has difficult technique combined with an exhausting number of unique notes and chords, making it by far the hardest part of the piece although it is also the quietest.