Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 12/31/1969, uploaded on 09/06/2015

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Two Nocturnes, op. 48

The next pair of nocturnes came soon after op. 37, and were produced during the most fruitful period of Chopin’s tragically short life. Composed in 1841, they were published in January of the following year as op. 48, and were dedicated to Mlle. Laura Duperre. They were also among the several pieces—which included the Allegro de Concert, op. 46, the Fantasie op. 49, and the F sharp minor Polonaise, op. 44—which Chopin sold the copyrights to for a total of 2,000 francs. Like the earlier op. 27, the pair of nocturnes here presented is far removed from Fieldian prototype so marvelously exemplified in the much earlier op. 9 pieces. The profound depth of expression of these pieces and superb handling of form by their composer instead make them more the character pieces (in particular the ballade) that would become a hallmark of the Romantic period.

The first of the pair opens in the tragic key of C minor with an intensely sorrowful melody moving against a bass line in octaves and staccato chords. Little changes in this opening section as the music seems numbed by its own misery. Ornamentation is minimal—the melody breaking into a long, pathetic melisma only in its final measures. Of particular interest is a sixteenth-note rhythm introduced in the bass roughly halfway through the melody that furthers the tragic air of the piece. Marked to be played a little slower (Poco piu lento), the central episode of this ternary design changes into the major mode and presents the listener with a sotto voce chorale-like tune in thick-voiced chords. The consoling chorale is, however, interrupted by agitated Lisztian octaves moving in triplet rhythms and chromatic motion that drive the music to its climax. Deftly, Chopin maintains the triplets, without any loss of energy, as the accompaniment of a greatly altered restatement of the opening theme. The coda is approached by a traditional cadential 6-4 chord leading into the dominant, but the expected tonic chord is replaced by a poignant discord above a G-flat (the diminished fifth of the scale). From the fortissimo reach on this discord, the music diminishes into an unaccompanied melisma before quietly ending on three solemn tonic chords.

The C minor Nocturne’s companion piece is of a much different character. Instead of grief, the piece is introspective, musing contentedly in its own nighttime reveries. Despite the key signature of F-sharp minor, the two introductory bars immediately flirt with the major mode, but then establish the minor tonality as the music cadences into the first theme. As the contemplative theme winds about mostly confined to the minor scale, the underpinning harmonies continue to make use of tones borrowed from the major mode, as well as adding a beguiling sense of ambiguity. Six-five chords often replace what would be expected triads and augmented sixths provide tangents into related tonal areas. Also a ternary design like the preceding piece, the episode likewise provides a charming point of departure. Marked to be played somewhat slower (Più lento), the meter changes from common to triple, the key into the dominant major, all the while the music, by Chopin’s own recorded direction to a student, takes own a recitative-like character. Paired chords, adhering now more to the dictates of pure diatonic harmony, are separated by unaccompanied melodic phrases, which incased is the motivic germ for the entire section. Ultimately, a sort of climax is reached upon the dominant of D-flat major, from which Chopin, with masterful ease, quickly transitions back into a reprise of the opening theme. Beginning as it did before, the reprise eventually breaks off into an unaccompanied phrase, subtly recalling the texture of the central episode, and signaling the start of the coda.

Recorded around September 1, 1965

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