cheeeeee This album recorded on a Pleyel 1839 pianino (with 6 1/2 octaves) that has “a beautiful natural resonance and a velvety timbre” illustrates how Chopin preludes sounded like when they were composed on the same type of piano.
It's worth pointing out that the Pleyel upright was not Chopin's first instrument of choice for composing (he had a
Pleyel grand in Paris), and that most of the preludes, including this one, were not even composed on it: most of the time during his stay in Majorca, where he composed the preludes, he only had access to a very inferior instrument. He had accepted to travel to Majorca with George Sand in the winter of 1838, and had arranged with Pleyel to have an upright piano shipped over, but the instrument was held up by customs, so he made do with what he could find on the spot.