A Bergamasque of Twilight and Lace: The Nocturnes of Frédéric Chopin

From the Bench: Notes on the Notes

The following are program notes I wrote for Piers Lane’s performance today in Fort Worth at the PianoTexas International Festival and Academy. Click here for livestream.

As I sit here contemplating what to write (a common postprandial ritual of mine these summer evenings), I have opened before me an old Cortot edition of the Nocturnes published by Éditions Salabert. These time-worn covers—those familiarly waxy turquoise-and-white reliquaries, reverenced by so many connoisseurs of piano—hold musical treasures within, each nocturne singing its own unique song to its beloved.

It is one of history’s amusing ironies that Chopin adored opera and yet never wrote one. Bellini, a name ever on his lips—almost a mantra of sorts—was Chopin’s Beatrice. As Karl Mikuli recounted, Chopin would remark, “Il faut chanter si l’on veut jouer” (“One must sing if one wishes to play”). Mikuli also observed that Chopin appeared to dream whilst performing. Indeed, when rendering the Nocturnes, the pianist must become a somnambulist medium of sorts.

There are twenty-one nocturnes. The more numerologically inclined (or easily distractable) might note, with a wink, that twenty-one grams is said to be the weight of the soul (as canonized by early 20th-century pseudoscience). Or some might gesture to twenty-one as a Fibonacci number, part of that elegant spiral etched into the very architecture of nature itself. That the twenty-one nocturnes divide into eight separate opus numbers—the latter number being yet another Fibonacci digit—well, in a less cynical (and infinitely more naïve) age, that might have perhaps been taken as evidence of some sort of heavenly architecture at play. Of course, I digress—but then again, digression is the soul of program notes, is it not?

So let us take a leisurely stroll down the moonlit promenade of the Nocturnes, a bergamasque spun out of twilight and lace, and examine each of these gems, opus by opus.

Nocturne in C minor, KKIVb/8

Three of the twenty-one nocturnes were published posthumously, in cheerful disregard of Chopin’s express wishes to the contrary. Of course, nobody really minded.

This nocturne belongs to that posthumous trio. It is commonly debated whether this nocturne is authentic or apocryphal; theories range from it being composed by a student of Chopin’s, a certain Charlotte de Rothschild; others insist it is written by Chopin himself. Regardless of the answer, the question is irrelevant, just as it is irrelevant whether Bach indeed composed the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor for organ. What matters is that the work is unquestionably of the highest compositional order. At any rate, Chopin is likely peering from over heaven’s rails, amused at the pedantic antics of musicologists debating these questions like a throng of Medieval scholastics.

Nocturne in E minor, Op. 72 No. 1

What a delightfully silky and languorous piece this nocturne is. The most captivating parts of the composition (for any pianist I feel) are the softly iridescent G major passages which perfume the entire piece with an ambrosial fragrance. You will recognize these passages when you hear them—such dappled things could have only come from Chopin’s pen.

Nocturne in C-sharp minor, KK IVa/16

Some of the thematic material used in this nocturne is referenced in the third movement of Chopin’s second piano concerto (which was actually composed before the first concerto, but no matter). Dedicated to his sister Ludwika, it is an early work of Chopin’s and contains much of the writing that would later become characteristic of his nocturnes. The coda is especially arresting—its scales flutter tremulously, evoking the trembling wings of a butterfly in its last throes, each beat of the wing slower and more fragile until the music gives way to complete silence.

Three Nocturnes, Op. 9

And now, we have reached the canonical nocturnes. The very first nocturne of this triptych immediately alerts us to Chopin’s vocal sensibilities. Suspended above the stars, a solitary voice emerges—weightless and unbound, completely unencumbered by the confines of an accompaniment. The primacy of the voice in Chopin’s mind couldn’t be clearer. Coloratura embellishments ripple throughout the entire work, and the capacious spread of the left hand shrouds the entire composition with a viridescent cloak of sound.

The second nocturne of this set, undoubtedly a victim of its own fame, has been groped far too often by the grubby fingers of less-than-sensitive pianists. It takes a good dusting off of the score to reveal its true beauty. Nonetheless, it is one of the more famous nocturnes, and for good reason. An unbroken soliloquy in E-flat major, it is untouched by contrast or interruption, unlike the other nocturnes bookending the Op. 9 set, which have contrasting middle sections.

The third nocturne is a paradoxical confection infused with both melancholy and whimsy, or perhaps żal as the Polish would say (there is no English word for żal, but imagine a forlorn Parisian, a lone tear tracing down their cheek onto their trench coat, wistfully contemplating a soggy croissant while seated in the rain at a faux-French café). This nocturne contains the most dramatic outburst of the three nocturnes with its turbulent middle section. After this, an exquisitely luminous coda finishes the piece with a glistening B major chord, wiping the slate clean of all the troubles coming before.

Three Nocturnes, Op. 15

Hippolyte Barbedette (let us linger on that deliciously oxymoronic forename), an early biographer of Chopin, compared the first nocturne of this set to a “peaceful lake, suddenly agitated by a violent squall, then serene again.” The same cannot be said of the second nocturne, however; the middle section is neither agitated nor violent, but is instead ecstatic and radiant. This is quite expected given its key of F-sharp major, a key hallowed as one of the most incandescent tonalities by both Liszt and Messaien.

Lastly, in the third nocturne, Chopin overcomes his well-known distaste towards programmatic music by hastily scrawling in the manuscript, “after a performance of Hamlet!” Unusual markings abound in the work, especially in the section marked Religioso, a tempo indication more akin to Liszt than Chopin.

Two Nocturnes, Op. 27

This set of two nocturnes recalls the theatrical masks of the Greeks—Melpomene, the Muse of Tragedy (the C-sharp minor nocturne) and Thalia, the Muse of Comedy (the D-flat major nocturne).

In the first nocturne, a solitary melody materializes amidst a fog of Aegean hue, a ghostly specter slowly emerging into focus through the mists. This ominous revenant only loosens its grip on the listener towards the end of the piece, which ends in a major key.

Subsequently, in what is generally considered one of the most remarkable left-hand openings of the piano literature, the second nocturne opens with a diffusely nebulous bed of sound, above which a melody luxuriously floats as if on a chaise longue. This nocturne is a masterclass in the art of melodic embellishment, a magic carpet ride of ever more exotic meanderings and zigzags.

Two Nocturnes, Op. 32

Almost naïve in its expression of tenderness, this nocturne is one out of three nocturnes Chopin composed in B major. It is also one of those rare instances in the classical canon where a composition ends with a reverse Picardy third—where the piece begins in major but ends in minor.

Regarding the tempo of the second nocturne, one does think a bit of Mendelssohn’s first Venetian Boat Song from his Lieder Ohne Worte. The lazily winding chromaticism of the middle section also reminds one of some of Liszt’s harmonic language.

Two Nocturnes, Op. 37

Much like the Op. 27 nocturnes mentioned earlier, the two nocturnes of Op. 37 also summon forth a dialectic of opposites—imagine Janus with his twin visages simultaneously peering into the ageless past and the unknowable future. Upon hearing the first nocturne in G minor, Schumann declared that “There is no need for Chopin to sign his works; henceforth, every note in them will bear his name.” An inconsolably morose work, the only point of consolation is the brief middle section evoking liturgical chant. One almost chokes from the incense.

The second nocturne, by contrast, evokes the honeyed timbre of the inimitable French chanteuse, Barbara—her cigarette-stained voice curling through the air like delicate tendrils of smoke. Barcarollesque in its rhythmic gait, this nocturne weaves together a delicate tapestry of melodic threads, an appliqué wrought from fecund notesmithery and coquettish modulations.

Two Nocturnes, Op. 48

One of Chopin’s most austere works, the C minor nocturne evokes the granitic and Borgesian opening textures of Mozart’s Requiem (admittedly, this comparison is only apt if we have in mind Celibidache’s tempo for the Requiem—or lack thereof, as some might contend). The middle section, with its monumental arpeggiated chords, is quite difficult to surpass, compositionally speaking. Only César Franck eclipses Chopin in an analogous passage in the Chorale of the Prélude, Chorale, et Fugue.

If one could describe the next nocturne in only one word, it would be ‘melos,’ in reference Wagner’s theorem of unceasing melody. Undoubtedly, this is a comparison Chopin would vehemently take issue with, but no matter. The never-ending melody of this nocturne obsessively flows downwards towards the incessantly motoric figures in the left hand. It really is all quite depressing, which is probably what made Barbedette write of this nocturne as evoking a “heartbreaking sadness.”

Two Nocturnes, Op. 55

The first nocturne of this set is a lonely little piece; one almost wants to give it a hug. The more perverse of mind hear a rhythmic similarity to Bizet’s Toreador song; the more noble see crepuscular elegance blooming into shimmering gossamer in the ending coda.

The second nocturne is a sinuous interplay of melodic lines—reminding one of the love duet present in the Barcarolle, Op. 60. One of the most structurally free of the nocturnes, the star-crossed entanglement of the melodic lines even approaches the ecstasy of Scriabin at certain moments.

Two Nocturnes, Op. 62

Herein lies one of the greatest passages in the entire piano literature: an entire page of trills in the first nocturne. Cortot speaks rather poorly of this work, a surprising misjudgment to be sure. Where he sees tortured counterpoint, I can’t help but see undulating flexuousness and emotional chiaroscuro—or perhaps a state of ‘Innig,’ as Schumann would say.

And now we have reached Chopin’s swan song, the last of the twenty-one nocturnes. This nocturne certainly has a feeling of looking back. Its melody possesses a noble dignity that could only come from a composer who has attained true wisdom—what David Bentley Hart once called “the recovery of innocence at the far end of experience.”